Easter celebrations around the world

Valladolid, Spain

Celebrations are particularly emotional in Valladolid. Good Friday processions include members of different Easter “brotherhoods” dressed in characteristic robes and riding on horseback. They also carry Castilian religious statues to the sound of drums and music.

Alghero, Sardinia

Alghero celebrates Holy Week according to the rites of an ancient tradition dating back to 1501. The celebrations will open on Tuesday with the procession of Sorrowful Mysteries.

Seville, Spain

Seville puts on one of the most spectacular processions of masked penitents and lavish floats in the world. Thousands line the streets to watch the daily processions of marching bands and highly decorated candlelit floats heaving with Baroque statues illustrating the Easter story, followed by hundreds of cloaked ‘nazarenos’ (penitents, dressed in habits). Semana Santa also symbolises the beginning of spring for the people of Seville, so there are celebrations throughout the city and in many of its restaurants and bars.

Rome, Italy

The procession on Good Friday involves performances that draw inspiration from medieval times. The actors recite texts that start in the New Testament and continue with the reconstruction of the Nativity, following the events in Christ's life up until the crucifixion.

Tens of thousands of faithful will gather in St Peter's Square on Easter Sunday when the pope conducts Mass. He also delivers his traditional message of hope and peace, known as the "Urbi et Orbi".

Jerusalem, Israel

In the holy city where the Easter story takes place, the Palm Sunday procession commemorates the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and involves up to 10,000 people. It starts at Bethphage and continues into the Old City entering through the St. Stephen's Gate and ending at the Church of St. Anne.

Christians mark Good Friday by walking the same path they believe Jesus took before his crucifixion, some with their own crosses. They also attend mass in the city’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre – the site at which many Christians believe Jesus was buried and the resurrection later took place. Pilgrims also congregate for an Easter sunrise service at the Garden Tomb.

Philippines

Filipinos take part in bloody Easter rituals in which half-naked penitents whip their backs with blades and bamboo sticks. Many Filipino Catholics perform religious penance during the week leading up to Easter as a form of worship and supplication. These rites are believed to cleanse the sins of the devotees, cure illnesses and even grant wishes.

Devotees walk barefoot in sweltering heat, stopping every few hundred yards at makeshift altars while local residents recite texts narrating Jesus Christ's suffering.

There are also processions with Christ carrying the cross.

Trapani, Sicily

Trapani stages the island's most dramatic Easter festivities. The procession of the Misteri sees life-size wooden sculptures, dating from the 17th century, carried on the shoulders of locals through Trapani. Walkers begin at 2pm on Good Friday, finishing at midnight. The event is very popular with tourists, though, so book hotels in advance.

Indonesia

The crucifixion is represented quite literally in Christian parts of Indonesia, with young men considering it an honour to be chosen to play Jesus and be tied to cross in various locations. Christianity was brought to islands such as Flores, east of Bali, by Portuguese missionaries and statues from this time are carried through the streets. There are around seven million Catholics in Indonesia.

Florence, Italy

Tradition says that during the first Crusade of 1096 the Florentine knight Pazzo de 'Pazzi was the first man who planted the banner of the Cross on battlements in Jerusalem and as a gift he received some fragments of the Holy Sepulchre.

Upon his return to Florence the stones were used to start the Sacred Fire of Holy Saturday, and were paraded through the city as homage to it in a richly decorated chariot. Nowadays, on Easter Sunday a large wagon is pulled by white oxen in a procession in the streets of the centre of Florence to the front of the cathedral.

When the Gloria is sung inside the cathedral, the Archbishop lights a dove-shaped rocket which tears down a wire into the cart, setting off a large and suitably noisey fireworks display inside.

Malaga, Spain

Hundreds of processions involving participants dressed in white robes take place during Holy Week – Semana Santa in Spanish.

Celebrations in Malaga include a lengthy procession involving moving alterpieces, candles, orange blossom and clouds of incense.

Prizzi, Sicily

In Prizzi, in the hills south of Palermo, "The Abballu de daivuli" is a representation by locals of devils wearing horrendous masks of zinc and dressed in red robes. The devils run around on Easter Sunday trying to trap as many souls as possible (in the form of getting them to buy drinks) until the afternoon when the Virgin Mary and the Risen Christ triumph and the devils are carried away by angels.

Fonte: http://www.telegraph.co.uk