Semana Santa

Ecuadorians are, in general, Catholic. They have adopted and maintained some of the old Spanish rituals. Where we celebrate Easter in the United States, they celebrate Holy Week, culminating in a procession in Old Quito that is full of pageantry and penitents. I've taken the pictures mostly from tourism websites because I didn't attend. However, Emily and the Wallbrechts went, and they reported that a walk that usually takes 20 minutes took 5 hours while the procession was in progress. The quotes are also from the Quito tourism site. They explain what the pictures show better than I could.

Following the Via Crucis prayer in the morning, the religious community of Quito has only one thing on its mind: the great procession of Good Friday which leaves from the church of San Francisco. Father John estimates that over the last years around 90,000 people have participated in the procession, not counting the tens of thousands of spectators who throng Quito’s historic heart.

The procession begins at midday to recall the hour which Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus to death. A month before the 2006 procession, Father Castro already had 600 people signed up, “not counting those that join the procession of their own accord!” The hooded cucuruchos and the robed Verónicas are the traditional figures who accompany Jesús del Gran Poder (Jesus Almighty) and the Virgen Dolorosa (Virgin of Sorrows) on the procession which starts and ends at the San Francisco church and which passes through a large swathe of the historical centre.

The cucuruchos symbolise the penitents who, dressed in purple, show their repentance and their will to change. There are also many penitents carrying crosses, or with their feet chained, or even with real thorns wrapped around their heads. The Verónicas recall the woman who came to Jesus as He carried the cross, and who wiped His face full of sweat and blood (the origin of the Shroud of Turin). In Quito, the Verónicas also wear purple, their faces hidden by black shrouds. The image of Jesús del Gran Poder (Jesus the Almighty) [is] carried aloft upon a float by the populace, accompanied by the Syracusan who helped Christ to carry his burden. The float and its sculpture of Jesus the Almighty belongs to the San Francisco church, and today remains the most important figure in Quito’s Holy Week celebrations. The float weighs several hundred kilos and is carried by at least a dozen men.

The procession lasts until three in the afternoon, the hour of the death of the Lord, and the Descent from the Cross is performed at six in the evening, the hour at which the day ends in Jewish culture. In many churches, the ceremony of the Seven Words and of the Descent from the Cross is performed, where the priest narrates from his pulpit how the holy women and the Apostles performed the sepulchre of Christ. During the ceremony, especially designated faithful remove the nails from the image of the crucified Christ and pass his body to a group of waiting women wearing tunics who place him in a coffer adorned with flowers and white cloth. Following this, the procession with the dead Christ takes place, with the coffer held aloft by the Santos Varones (Saintly Men) who cover their heads with white turbans.