Sabbath in Christianity

Sabbath in Christianity is the inclusion of a Sabbath day in Christianity, a day set aside for rest and worship, a mandatory practice described in the Ten Commandments in line with God's blessing of the seventh day (Saturday) making it holy, "because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation". The practice was associated with the assembly of the people to worship in synagogues on the day known as Shabbat.

Early Christians, at first mainly Jewish, observed the seventh-day Sabbath with prayer and rest. At the beginning of the second century the Church Father Ignatius of Antioch approved non-observance of the Sabbath. The now majority practice of Christians is to observe Sunday, called the Lord's Day, rather than the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath as a day of rest and worship.

Possibly because of a movement initiated in the early 14th century by Ewostatewos, which gained approval under Emperor Zara Yaqob, Ethiopian Christians observe a two-day Sabbath covering both Saturday and Sunday.

In line with ideas of the 16th and 17th-century Puritans, the Presbyterian and Congregationalist, as well as Methodist and Baptist Churches, enshrined first-day (Sunday) Sabbatarian views in their confessions of faith, observing the Lord's Day as the Christian Sabbath. While practices differ among Christian denominations, common First-day Sabbatarian (Sunday Sabbatarian) practices include attending morning and evening church services on Sundays, receiving catechesis in Sunday School on the Lord's Day, taking the Lord's Day off from servile labour, not eating at restaurants on Sundays, not Sunday shopping, not using public transportation on the Lord's Day, as well as not participating in sporting events that are held on Sundays; Christians who are Sunday Sabbatarians often engage in works of mercy on the Lord's Day, such as evangelism, as well as visiting prisoners at jails and the sick at hospitals and nursing homes.

Beginning about the 17th century, a few groups of Restorationist Christians, mostly Seventh-day Sabbatarians, formed communities that adopted the original interpretation of law, either Christian or Mosaic, reminiscent of the early Christian church.