Foot washing is a Christian practice derived directly from the Gospel account of the Last Supper, in which Jesus, on the night before his death, rose from the meal, girded himself with a towel, and washed the feet of his disciples, a task belonging to the lowliest servant, and then told them that they too should wash one another's feet, having given them an example. The act dramatised his teaching that the greatest must be the servant of all, and Christians have understood it ever since as a model of humility and loving service. As a ritual, foot washing enacts that lesson: the one who washes takes the servant's place, and the one whose feet are washed receives, as Peter at first reluctantly did, the humbling care of another.
The practice is observed in several forms across Christianity. In the Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican traditions it is performed liturgically on Maundy Thursday of Holy Week, when a bishop, priest or, in a widely noted modern example, the Pope washes the feet of others in commemoration of Christ's act. Among various Anabaptist and other groups, Mennonites, some Brethren and Baptist congregations, foot washing is kept as a regular ordinance, practised in connection with the Lord's Supper as an ongoing observance rather than an annual commemoration, and understood by some as a third ordinance alongside baptism and communion. In all its forms the rite preserves and re-enacts one of the most vivid of Jesus's enacted teachings, translating the reversal of status at its heart into a bodily act of mutual service.