Good Friday Procession

A centuries-old tradition at the foot of Mount Etna

The Good Friday Procession is the most anticipated religious event of the year in Bronte, a town in the province of Catania located on the western slopes of Mount Etna, in Sicily. It is a centuries-old tradition, interrupted only by the Second World War and the 2020 pandemic, which the Municipality of Bronte and local confraternities renew every year in the heart of the historic center. The procession stages, along the winding streets of the town, a sequence that chronologically retraces the most dramatic moments of the Passion of Christ.

The four statues of the Passion

At the heart of the rite are the large sacred statues, carried on the shoulders of hundreds of faithful, often barefoot as a vow:

• Christ at the Column, supported by many young people barefoot;
• Christ Crucified;
• Dead Christ, laid in the urn;
• Our Lady of Sorrows, the Mother seeking her Son on the way of the cross.

The floats are often adorned with seasonal produce, such as fava beans and peas, a sign of the deep bond between devotion and the land of Bronte.

The procession and the living characters

Accompanying the statues are the historic local confraternities—including the Misericordia, the Third Order of St. Francis, Jesus and Mary, St. Charles Borromeo, and the Most Holy Sacrament—who parade in black robes with mourning-trimmed banners. The procession also includes numerous living characters: St. Michael the Archangel, maidens veiled in white carrying the symbols of the Passion (the palm, the chalice, the bread, the cross, the nails, the thorns), the Apostles in period costumes, Roman soldiers, and the pious women with hair loose as a sign of penance. It is a day of reflection: there is no singing or laughing, and everything takes place in a silence charged with emotion.

The schedule and the Encounter

The procession starts in the afternoon, around 4:30 PM, from the Church of the Madonna del Riparo with the departure of Christ; further on, near the Capuchin church, the urn of the Dead Christ joins. The most moving moment is the Encounter: in the evening, around 9:00 PM, in front of the Annunziata Sanctuary in Piazza Gagini, the evangelical meeting between Jesus and the Mother of Sorrows is renewed, accompanied by the ancient chant of the Stabat Mater. The procession concludes around midnight with the return of the statues to their respective churches.

A defining rite for Bronte

More than a simple liturgical celebration, Good Friday is for the community of Bronte a defining appointment that draws an overflowing crowd to the streets of the center every year. Amidst invocations in the Sicilian dialect, white handkerchiefs raised in unison by the bearers, and the ancient polyphonic lamenti, the procession blends faith, folklore, and collective memory into one of the most evocative events of the Sicilian Holy Week.