ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA: Friday before Easter, the day on which Christians annually observe the commemoration of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. From the early days of Christianity, Good Friday was observed as a day of sorrow, penance, and fasting, a characteristic that finds expression in the German word Karfreitag (“Sorrowful Friday”). Christ’s arrest, trial, suffering, crucifixion, and death are recorded in all four Gospel accounts, with slightly varying chronologies and details.

Having been betrayed by his disciple Judas Iscariot, Jesus is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and led away to be tried. First, the Jewish religious authorities examine him on the charge that he has disobeyed the traditions of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and made blasphemous claims about himself. They adjudge him guilty. Although the punishment prescribed for the sin of blasphemy was death (Leviticus 24:16), the Jews do not execute the punishment (historians disagree about whether they had a right to mete out capital punishment). Instead, they refer the case of Jesus to the civil authorities, and it becomes necessary for him to have a second trial before the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate. Seemingly against his better judgment, Pilate yields to the pressures of the populace and their leaders, releasing the prisoner Barabbas and handing over Jesus to be crucified. Having been sentenced to death, Jesus is scourged, beaten, and forced to wear a crown of thorns.

He, with the help of Simon of Cyrene, is made to carry his own cross up the hill at Golgotha, the site of his execution. (The biblical and traditional events of this walk are commemorated by the Stations of the Cross, a visual devotion in many churches.) He is crucified between two other men, one of whom mocks Jesus and the other who defends him as an innocent man. The four Gospel accounts have differing perspectives of Christ’s final hours, and they record seven statements spoken by a dying Jesus from the cross. At the moment of his death, the biblical narratives also describe a number of miraculous portents, including darkness over the land, an earthquake, and the tearing of the Temple veil. In accordance with Jewish law, Jesus’ body is buried that same day in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.