page_title: Tenebrae
section_title: Other Western Christian Churches
hierarchical_section_title: Tenebrae / Other Western Christian Churches
caption_attribution_description: The image shows the front side of a Good Friday church bulletin. This bulletin, from Faith Lutheran Church in Kent, Ohio, USA, describes a summary of the components of a typical tenebrae service.
context_page_description: Tenebrae is a religious service of Western Christianity held during the three days preceding Easter Day, and characterized by gradual extinguishing of candles, and by a "strepitus" or "loud noise" taking place in total darkness near the end of the service.
  Tenebrae was originally a celebration of matins and lauds of the last three days of Holy Week in the evening of the previous day to the accompaniment of special ceremonies that included the display of lighted candles on a special triangular candelabra.
  Celebrations called Tenebrae today may be of quite different content and structure, based for example on the Seven Last Words or readings of the Passion of Jesus. They may be held on only one day of Holy Week, especially Spy Wednesday, They may be held during the daylight hours and the number of candles, if used, may vary.
  Tenebrae liturgical celebrations of this kind now exist in the Latin Catholic Church, Lutheran Churches, Anglican Churches, Methodist Churches, Reformed Churches and Western Rite Orthodoxy.
context_section_description: Some Protestant denominations retained elements of the Roman Tenebrae liturgy, or added others. The Tenebrae services in the Lutheran, Anglican, United Methodist, United Church of Christ and Presbyterian Churches all contain "the pattern of extinguishing the candles (and the overhead lights) and restoring the Christ candle", along with the strepitus. Some liturgical Baptist congregations also hold Tenebrae Services. Variations of Tenebrae are sometimes celebrated in less formal or non-denominational churches as well.
  Some Tenebrae responsory settings led their own life in Protestant practice, for instance:
  Jacob Handl's Ecce quomodo moritur justus
  The Tristis est anima mea setting attributed to Johann Kuhnau
caption: The front cover of a Lutheran church bulletin for Good Friday, describing the significance, as well as the summary of components, of a typical tenebrae service.
exif: {"Image Make": "Research In Motion", "Image Model": "BlackBerry 9550", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Microsoft Windows Photo Viewer 6.1.7600.16385", "Image DateTime": "2012:04:07 03:41:54", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "2324", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF ExposureTime": "0", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:04:07 03:39:58", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "0", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "No flash function", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1536", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2048", "EXIF DeviceSettingDescription": "[]", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}