Saint Sebastian Festival

The festival of the co-patron of Santa Venerina

In the municipality of Santa Venerina, in the province of Catania, at the foot of Mount Etna, the Saint Sebastian the Martyr Festival is one of the most anticipated and heartfelt events of the year. Venerated as the co-patron of the town alongside Saint Venera, Saint Sebastian is the object of a devotion that has lasted for over 160 years: his venerated statue was crafted in 1861 and is housed in its own chapel inside the Mother Church dedicated to Saint Venera, in Piazza Roma.

A deeply rooted popular tradition

The festival represents a moment of strong cohesion for the entire Santa Venerina community. The festivities open in the first days of January with the traditional journey of the relic and continue with the three-day preparation, leading up to the unveiling of the statue and its transfer from the chapel to the high altar. The heart of the celebration is the solemn procession, in which the 19th-century fercolo (processional float) is pulled by ropes by the so-called rizzareddi, the young devotees, while the brass band accompanies the parade and the sound of the bell marks every stop for offerings to the Saint.

Confraternities and Polyphonic Choral Review

A distinctive feature of the Santa Venerina festival is the gathering of confraternities from all over Sicily, which has long been a fixed appointment of the festivities. This is accompanied by the Polyphonic Choral Review, which reached its eleventh edition in 2026: choral groups from Sicilian towns that venerate Saint Sebastian perform their respective traditional hymns in a musical dialogue that unites the various devout communities. The evening culminates with a fireworks display, ignited at the moment the statue is moved from the churchyard.

Saint Sebastian in the Etnean calendar

Devotion to Saint Sebastian is widespread throughout the Etnean and Ionian territory—suffice it to think of the great festivals of Acireale and Syracuse—and Santa Venerina fits into this network of traditions with its own celebration, intimate yet intense. The festival, organized by the Saint Sebastian Confraternity together with the parish, marks the last Sunday of January with rites, gunfire, and music, extending with the solemn Octave in the following days.

An event to experience

Attending the Saint Sebastian Festival in Santa Venerina means immersing yourself in authentic Sicilian popular religiosity: the passion of the bearers, the roar of the fireworks, the singing of the choirs, and the embrace of an entire community around its Saint offer the visitor an experience of great emotional and cultural intensity, set against the backdrop of the volcanic landscape of Mount Etna.