Holy Week in Braga
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Photography exhibition

Holy Week

a European perspective

Jelsa, Croacia

Jelsa is a predominantly Catholic town, and Holy Week and Easter are important religious holidays that are celebrated with great reverence and tradition. The week leading up to Easter Sunday, known as Holy Week, is a time of reflection and prayer, with various religious services and processions taking place throughout the town.

 

In addition to the religious celebrations, Jelsa also hosts several cultural events during Holy Week and Easter. These include concerts, art exhibits, and traditional folk dances, which showcase the town's rich cultural heritage.

 

The all-night 'Za križen' Procession is a unique tradition which takes place every year during the night from Maundy Thursday to Good Friday, linking the settlements of Jelsa, Pitve, Vrisnik, Svirče, Vrbanj and Vrboska on Hvar Island

 

The 'Za križen' Procession is highly picturesque, with the lay brothers of the confraternities in their robes carrying lanterns and torches under the moonlight as they make their way along the winding paths from village to village to each parish stop.

 

The 'Za Križen' Procession is like a 'living film', in which six island settlements form an unbroken chain of prayer, piety and vows through the all-night pilgrimage. When it takes place, a special energy permeates the whole island. It is a fact that powerful spiritual traditions like the 'Za Križen' Procession are somehow magically unforgettable. The Cross-Bearer from each parish is the central figure: each one of the six will have made a personal vow before taking up and carrying the holy cross, just as his forebears did before him over the centuries.

 

The 'Za križen' procession tradition on Hvar is extra special in that it has been taking place annually for more than 500 years.

 

On good Friday evening after liturgical rituals inside the parish churches, the holy Eucharist is carried in ceremonial procession under a baldaquin around the parishes across the wole of Hvar Island.

 

The Holy Sacrament is accompanied by the members of the local confraternity in their robes with their Cross-Bearer. This is a rich symbolic tradion representing the Passion, enhanced by the sonorous Passion chants, especially the haunting „Puče moj“ („Oh my people“).

 

The processions are visually impressive, and the haunting singing which accompanies them completes a profound spiritual experience for participants and obsververs who join in having prepared themselves in a pious frame of mind.

 

Each settlement has its own version of the chants which are sung during their „Za križen“ processions. Prayers are usually sung by the people following the cross along the route, while the leaders around each Ceoss-Bearer sing supplications in ancient harmonies. In the all-night Procession, for each stop there are different chants when approaching and leaving the churches.

 

Inside the churches the central focus is the singing of the „Gospin Plač“. („Our Lady's Lament). This is divided into three parts, the first and last sung by two lead tenors, with the response in between by three or four.

 

In the Hvar veraion only a few words  at  a time are sung in each part of the lament: they are drawn out into a prolonged stream, with a pause for breath between the lines. The singers coordinate to create an almost palpable vibration during the chant, which gives the effect of a female wailing over the top of their deep male voices. The correct breathing technique is essential to producing the phenomenom. Traditionally, sons of the singers learn the technique from puberty, as soon as their voices break, so that later on they can be chosen for the honour of singing this essential part of the procession rituals. All the most important chants during the Holly week events are sung by males producing sonorous and resonant harmonies.

 

In the Theophoric processions, a key part is the singing of „Puče moj“ („Oh my people“). The „Muke Gospodina“ („Passion of Christ“) is sung several times during the week: in the churches members of the choir take on the parts of the various people involved in the unfolding of the events. Everyone is of course welcome to take part in any of the processions, to share in the profound spiritual experience. Although the all-night procession has been popularized because of its uniqueness, it is not to be treated as a tourist spectacle. Visitors can choose which processing to join, of all those on the island. Those wanting to take part in the all-night central Procession need to decide which od the six settlements to start from: you can walk the whole way, or just part. Another option is to remain in one of the churches to see the successive visiting processions and appreciate the variations in their music.

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