Burial Service – Good Friday

This service is a solemn reenactment of The Burial of Christ and is very similar to the ceremony reenacted each year on Good Friday at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. There are very few places outside of the Holy Land where this ceremony is performed. The friars process through the church with a figure of the Lord after his body has been removed from the cross at the Altar of Calvary. At the conclusion of the procession, the “body” is placed on the anointing stone and, with measured solemnity, is lavishly incensed and anointed. The body is then placed into the Sepulchre itself and, as they leave, the door is dramatically slammed shut — to be reopened on the “third day.”