Good Friday his advisers, decreed that Good Friday that year would be a holiday. This was Castro's response to a request made personally to him by Pope Benedict XVI during the latter's Apostolic Visitation to the island and León, Mexico that month. The move followed the pattern of small advances in Cuba's relations with the Vatican, mirroring Pope John Paul II's success in getting Fidel Castro to declare Christmas Day a holiday. Both Good Friday and Christmas are now annual holidays in Cuba. In Hong Kong, despite the transfer of sovereignty from the UK to China in 1997, Good Friday continues to
Good Friday and "Hoher Freitag" ("High Friday, Holy Friday"). In the Nordic countries it is called "The Long Friday". In Greek, Polish and Hungarian, Good Friday is generally referred to as "Great Friday" ("Μεγάλη Περασκευή", "Wielki Piątek", "Nagypéntek"). According to the accounts in the Gospels, the royal soldiers, guided by Jesus' disciple Judas Iscariot, arrested Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Judas received money (30 pieces of silver) () for betraying Jesus and told the guards that whomever he kisses is the one they are to arrest. Following his arrest, Jesus was taken to the house of Annas, the father-in-law of the