Walking Spanish streets on Holy Week

Crowds of chattering onlookers lined the streets beneath a scorching sun in southern Spain this week while awaiting the start of a beloved religious tradition. As the sound of trumpet blasts and drumbeats approached, the people fell silent, watching as clouds of incense wafted from a marcher’s swinging metal censer. Cloaked individuals with pointed hoods, many of them shoeless, held large candlesticks while walking ahead of a large image of Jesus carried by 40 men.

With each drumbeat’s rhythmic thump, both image and marchers swayed forward. Some spectators cried, some clapped, and all looked up and recorded on their phones as the image passed overhead, hundreds of real flowers and lit candles shrouding its gold-covered base.

During the week leading up to Easter, cities in Spain—most famously in Andalusia, the country’s southernmost region—host impressive processions featuring centuries-old floats that depict Jesus’ final days before His death and portray the grief of Mary. Holy Week processions are a defining cultural and religious tradition in cities like Seville. But with tradition and faith deeply intertwined, it can be difficult to know where one begins and the other ends, and evangelicals generally don’t participate in the annual custom.

The Roman Catholic Church began using processions in the mid-16th century to teach the story of Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection to the illiterate. Scenes displayed on each float represent a final moment on Jesus’ journey to the cross—the Via Crucis. Scenes of Christ at the Last Supper, being betrayed by Judas, and speaking to Pilate are followed by images of Mary with a golden crown and crystal tears.

Tourists from around the world visit southern Spain during Holy Week to admire the artwork, intricacy, and age of the wooden images displayed. In Seville alone, over 100 processions pass through the streets. Catholic-associated groups called brotherhoods care for the images and march with them each year.

A statue of the Virgin Mary is carried in procession through the streets of Seville on April 13. Associated Press / Photo by Emilio Morenatti

Nazarenos, wearing the hoods and cloaks, make up the majority of the processions—Seville’s largest has 3,500. Their face coverings originated in the Middle Ages as a way for individuals to do penance anonymously. Today, even children walk as nazarenos, handing out candy and pictures of the images to spectators along the route.

Among the most honorable—and difficult—roles in the processions is that of the costaleros, those who carry the floats. Hidden beneath the float’s platform, costaleros carry its weight on cushions on the napes of their necks, where the beams rest like a yoke.

Miguel Ángel Oliver, 54, has been a costalero in Seville for 40 years. Oliver’s float goes out on Monday of Holy Week and depicts Jesus before Caiaphas. It runs for 12 hours and weighs nearly 6,000 pounds.

Carrying the image as a costalero is a defining factor of Oliver’s faith: “It wouldn’t make sense to be underneath suffering as one suffers … without feeling Christian, without believing in God, and without having the devotion that one has.”

Bright red necks and sweaty chests give away any costaleros on break. Forty-five costaleros carry Oliver’s float, and though they switch out every three hours, the process is grueling.

When Oliver carries the float, he claims he feels God. Other costaleros describe how they feel the image’s feet as they carry it, step by step, making it look as though it were walking. Oliver treats it as a form of penance.

“It’s my life,” Oliver says. “Everything I have, everything that I am … is thanks to Holy Week.”

If Seville has the most processions, then Málaga, Andalusia’s coastal city, has the biggest floats, also called thrones. Gigantic and carried on throne bearers’ shoulders, some thrones require over 250 people to lift them.

When asked about their feelings toward the images, many Spaniards will say it’s a type of devotion. Borja Torres, 37, was a throne bearer in Málaga from age 16 to 29. He describes it as a highly emotional experience: “It was a dream come true.”

Members of the San Gonzalo brotherhood process through the streets of Seville on April 14. Associated Press / Photo by Emilio Morenatti

Unlike most Spaniards, Adrián Villasante, 33, has never participated in Holy Week. Though born and raised in Seville, he grew up as an evangelical. The only procession he saw was when he once got stuck in the crowds as one passed downtown.

It saddens him to reflect on city traditions that revel in ornate displays. “When Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, He went on a donkey, on a little donkey, and there was no gold, nothing,” he said.

“I always thought if they truly understood the gospel and what it is and what Jesus did . . . they wouldn’t be there.”

Alberto Puente, 38, an evangelical pastor in Seville, also wrestles with the customs of Spanish Catholics.

“I admire their devotion,” Puente said in his sermon on Palm Sunday, noting that the Holy Week observance shows how seriously Catholics view personal sin. Still, he emphasized that Jesus’ death has made believers spotless before God—no penance required.

This year, because of a hernia, Oliver was unable to serve as a costalero. But he plans to walk in front of the image at the procession. Once healed from surgery, he said, he’ll return to his annual role.

In Torres’ estimation, 9 out of 10 people involved in Holy Week aren’t religious in practice. He says many Spaniards participate in processions simply because of tradition.

Torres said he was sickly as a child. Doctors didn’t expect him to survive, but his mother made a promise to the Virgin of Carmen in Málaga: If her son lived, their whole family would walk behind the virgin’s image during the yearly procession. His mother’s promise pushed him to become heavily involved in Spanish Catholicism. He joined a brotherhood at age 14 and founded two more in Málaga.

But after a difficult breakup, friendship with two evangelicals led him to question his Catholic beliefs. He studied the Catholic Bible more closely, prayed for God to show him if he had been misled, and ended up becoming a Protestant in 2017.

Looking back on his life, Torres feels God has always been pursuing him. He believes his childhood involvement in processions made him sensitive to the story of Jesus from a young age.

Shortly after his conversion, he attended his final procession of the Virgin of Carmen with his mother. He used Scripture to explain to her why he was giving up on the popular annual ritual.

“Neither of us have returned,” Torres said.

Nazarenos in Spain during Holy Week Elisa Palumbo

Marchers in Spain during Holy Week Elisa Palumbo

Participants watch the El Cerro brotherhood carry a statue of Christ through the streets of Seville. Associated Press / Photo by Emilio Morenatti

A penitent holds his 6-month-old son during the Holy week festivals. Associated Press / Photo by Emilio Morenatti

A float is carried through Seville. Associated Press / Photo by Emilio Morenatti