Feast of the Holy Crucifix of Aracoeli (Babbaluti Festival)

The 2025 edition

The 2025 Feast of the Holy Crucifix of Aracoeli was held at the end of March, according to the custom of the last Friday of the month. As every year since 1612, the thirty-three confreres in blue robes, the Babbaluti, carried the wooden statue of the Crucifix on their shoulders along the streets of San Marco d'Alunzio, in the province of Messina, accompanying the procession with the poignant invocation "Signuri, Misericordia, Pietà!". The celebration, in the Church of Maria Santissima dell'Aracoeli, concluded with the deposition of Christ in the sapurcu, adorned with red and yellow drapes and illuminated by hundreds of candles.