This year marks a special Easter for Australia’s Christian community, with Catholics celebrating a Jubilee Year and both Western and Orthodox churches sharing, rather unusually, the same dates for the religious holiday.
And of course, it wouldn’t be Good Friday without a seafood feast.
Good Friday on a Catholic Jubilee Year
In the City of Churches, Catholic parishioners gathered at one of the oldest cathedrals in Adelaide — St Francis Xavier Cathedral — for the Good Friday service.
This year’s Easter holiday is particularly special for Catholics across the globe, with 2025 being a Jubilee Year for the church, and its followers encouraged to focus on spiritual reflection and renewal.
St Francis Xavier Cathedral is one of Adelaide’s oldest cathedrals, well-known for its Gothic Revival architecture.
The significance of the Catholic Jubilee Year has seen hundreds of people gather at Parramatta’s St Patrick’s Cathedral, which is one of three designated pilgrimage sites in Western Sydney dedicated to marking the milestone year.
Good Friday is a time where Christians reflect on the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
As is often tradition for these Good Friday services, many Christians have taken part in a ‘Stations of the Cross’ devotional activity, that has people reflect on 14 key moments leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
For the congregation from Victoria’s oldest Catholic church, St Francis, the ‘Stations of the Cross’ activity involved a two-hour long walk through the city’s CBD.
In Melbourne’s CBD, the Catholic congregation of St Francis made its way towards St Paul’s Cathedral.
An Orthodox Good Friday
Notably, this year Orthodox Christian communities are also celebrating Good Friday on the same day as Western churches — an unusual occurrence because the churches follow different calendars.
For the parishioners at one of Hobart’s Greek Orthodox churches, St George the Martyr, Good Friday is an all-day event.
It is a tradition in the Greek Orthodox Church for rose wreaths to prepared on Good Friday.
On Good Friday an ‘Epitaphios’, which means the Tomb of Christ, can be seen in Greek Orthodox Churches. Kate Nickels)
Father Dimitri Katsis said the women of the parish had spent the morning adorning the ‘Epitaphios’ (Tomb of Christ) with flowers for Friday evening’s candle-lit procession.
“Everyone will have candles, and we will take the tomb and the cross, and we will walk around the neighbourhood,” he said.
“It is very traditional. We like to keep our traditions.”
Father Katsis said Easter is one of the important times of year for his church.
Father Katsis said Easter was the most important time for his church.
“The Holy Week is everything for us because the resurrection is the foundation of our faith,” he said.
“We are a small community here, but we will see on Easter Saturday night … there will be up to 900 people for that service.”
“Easter is the biggest one, [people] will come for Easter no matter what.”
The traditional seafood feast
In-line with Good Friday tradition, many people are opting for seafood over red meat, heading down to their local fish market.
In Sydney, the famous Fish Markets in Pyrmont is set to have one of its busiest days of the year, with close to 50,000 people expected to visit.
Close to 50,000 people are expected to visit the famous Sydney Fish Markets on Good Friday.
And it certainly will be a feast, with an estimated 650,000 tonnes of seafood to be sold at the markets over the Easter period.
Head of operations for Sydney Fish Market, Gus Dannoun, said the markets accommodated for every budget, with “good value” options for those struggling with the cost-of-living crisis.
“Everything from your most expensive to your most valuable species,”
Mr Dannoun said.
“Things like snapper, blue swimmer crab, flathead, we had good supply of flathead, and the humble school whiting which is about the third of a price of those more expensive whitings. It’s good value.”
Mr Dannoun also noted this year would be the Fish Market’s last Easter trading period at the Pyrmont location, with it being relocated across the water to Glebe, along Blackwattle Bay, by this time next year.
Doing good, one Easter egg hunt at a time
More than 2,000 people turned out on Good Friday for the annual Royal Hobart Hospital Research Foundation’s Easter egg hunt, where an estimated 700 kilograms of chocolate eggs were given to Tasmanian children.
In its 14th year, the event broke previous attendance and fundraising records.
“It’s been a fantastic way to get families together and for the community support to our work,” the foundation’s chief executive Stephanie Furler said.
Ms Furler said the more than $40,000 raised would go towards the foundation’s research project that monitors the breathing patterns of premature babies.
Lila (standing in the middle) says she really enjoyed the Easter egg hunt.
Some of the happy recipients of the chocolate eggs included Lila, Billie and Archie.
“It was nice how we got that many Easter eggs. I like the Easter eggs and the games were fun,” Lila said.
“I’ll save [them] up and space it out. Otherwise, I’ll feel sick and I won’t want to eat them!”
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