Holy week in Capitanata

The rites are most striking in San Marco in Lamis,
Troy, Vico del Gargano and Monte Sant'Angelo

Easter is coming and in the week that precedes the Puglia is full of rituals and processions that precede the resurrection of Christ. No exception to the land of the captains, who during Holy Week offers events of high interest in religious and ethno-anthropological in several city centers.

San Marco in Lamis - On all stands San Marco in Lamis, with the procession of Our Lady of Sorrows and the dead Christ accompanied by "fracchie" huge pyres mounted on two wheels, up to six feet tall, weighing around a hundred kilos, that, according to the belief, are used to illuminate the Virgin Mary in search of his son. The liturgy, organized by the brothers of the Seven Sorrows, in mourning for the occasion, is staged in the late afternoon of Good Friday and this year has been included among the 10 nominations submitted to the Italian commission Unesco in Paris. Born at the beginning of the nineteenth century, in the second half of the twentieth century the procession of fracchie became more and more for his actors, a contest of skill and courage involving the construction of fracchia bigger and more beautiful. The parade religious conveys to him, every year, tens of thousands of people. Also in San Marco in Lamis, Holy Saturday is served through the streets of the Holy Representation ordeal of Christ with the participation of the villagers as actors and extras. While Easter St. Marquis provides the procession of the Madonna with the ceremonial dress, richly embroidered, and the crown on his head.

VICO DEL GARGANO - Interesting and equally suggestive Week Santa di Vico del Gargano, that opens the religious with the "weeping Madonna," a chorus of female voices that accompany the evening mass, and the '' Inquisition of darkness ", marked by the traditional songs of the tradition vichese. In the center Gargano, another feature of the Passover ritual is the parade the morning of Good Friday, with the passage of the "Madonnas", so they are called the five processions of the "Tomb" organized by brotherhoods, and the inhabitants of the country, visiting the 12 churches towns before reaching the Convent of the Capuchin friars. Each 'Madonna', singing hymns, is preceded by three children, of which the middle one carries the cross with the symbols of the Passion (flagella, hammer, crown of thorns, pincer, sponge, launches and sheet). Suggestive songs of the liturgy of the triple '' Adoration of the Cross ", the" Mass crazy 'and' Three hours of agony "that are held at 15 the same day in the church of the Purgatory. On the outskirts of Carmine, then, the neighborhood of the country where they are raised 5 crosses symbolizing the wounds of Jesus, you can hear a litany rise from the dark, "I love you Santa Croce, hard wood of my Lord, I adore you with voice, I adore the Holy Cross, "the priest intones the end of the religious procession on Good Friday evening.

MONTE SANT'ANGELO - A few kilometers from Vico, in Monte Sant'Angelo, the passion of Christ and his resurrection recurrences are very heartfelt and suitably celebrated. On the evening of Holy Thursday, the mountain people unfolds in the streets of the old town to visit the churches of the "Tomb". For the occasion, those who live in those areas is fine display clearing lime facades and leaving through the stained glass entrance and the lights on, a prominent house with "blanket rich 'on the double bed. In the church of St. Benedict, to remember the "scent of the Eucharist," the ancient tradition inspired embalming of the body of Christ, yet they prepare the "smells" by boiling fruit in white wine. The next day, early in the morning, always in the church of St. Benedict, he sings the "Matins of Darkness," a secular function in pre-conciliar Latin that has its roots in the traditions Benedictine monastic, accompanied by traditional local melodic psalms. To go out of a candle, which closes the function, all produce a thud hitting the pews, helped by the crackling sound of "bàttole" (in the local dialect, the "tròzzele"), to reproduce the upheaval of the earth's death Redeemer. At dusk, the church of St. Francis of Assisi, coming out the statue of the dead Christ followed by a huge crowd. The processional route explored by beautiful altars, a symbol of the Stations of the Cross, is illuminated with red candles placed on balconies and in the doorways of homes.

TROIA - The "barn" a few kilometers from Foggia has its characteristic Easter rites. It starts on Friday with a double procession, morning and evening. The first, from the early '700, is called the "procession of the chains" and is accomplished through the visit of the sepulchral city churches. Five penitents, clothes and hooded with white habit, carry a heavy cross on his shoulders, announcing their arrival with the left sound of chains linked to bare feet, and breaking, with the rhythmic beat of trocchiola, silence and sadness of the path of penance. By nightfall, kicks off, the Cathedral, the other procession, in which, through five groups of statues of modern invoice, will represent the stages of death and resurrection of the Messiah. In the procession stands out, carried on the shoulder by religious congregations, the refined papier-mâché statue of the Neapolitan school of Christ Deposed, preceded by the eighteenth-century statue of Our Lady of Sorrows. On Holy Saturday, in the afternoon session, takes place the sacred theatrical representation of the passion and death of Jesus Christ, staged by the villagers with period costumes. While characteristic of Easter Sunday is the ritual of "Kiss." Two marches opposing the statues of the Virgin Mary and Jesus come in the square in front of the Cathedral, where, in an intense roar of applause, the statues are approached and departed three times, to witness the kiss combiner of mother and son.