Store Bededag, translated literally as Great Prayer Day or more loosely as General Prayer Day, "All Prayers" Day, Great Day of Prayers or Common Prayer Day, is a Danish holiday celebrated on the 4th Friday after Easter. It is also celebrated in the Faroe Islands, where it is called Dýri biðidagur.
It is a collection of minor Christian holy days consolidated into one day. The day was introduced in the Church of Denmark in 1686 by King Christian V as a consolidation of several minor (or local) Roman Catholic holidays which the Church observed that had survived the Reformation. Store Bededag is a statutory holiday in Denmark. It was one of the few holidays that survived in the great holiday reform that was carried out in 1771 during the reign of Christian VII, when his Prime Minister, Count Johann Friedrich von Struensee, was in power. The day was introduced as a more efficient alternative to individually celebrating a number of holidays honoring various minor saints in the Spring. It was not, however, Struensee who had come up with the idea of this particular reform, as the church commission which had worked on it had been instituted several years before Struensee arrived at the Danish court.
(... from Wikipedia on 2012-04-17 22:39:37)