Holy Week Processions in Sorrento: charm and pathos in the streets before Easter

If you are in Sorrento during the Easter period, you can witness a strong historical tradition, repeated year after year: the Holy Thursday and Good Friday processions during Holy Week, the week before Easter.

This procession dates back to the Middle Ages, when some monks walked along the city streets carrying a cross and singing liturgical psalms.

The city of Sorrento mainly organises two processions, the ‘White’ and the ‘Black’.

The white procession is organised by the Confraternity of Santa Monica on the night between Thursday and Friday before Easter.

Its name derives from the colour of the habits the participants wear in silence, with their faces hidden under their hoods: the procession recalls the wandering of the Madonna who goes in search of Jesus, captured and condemned to death.

It is the suggestive prelude to Good Friday when the Brotherhood ‘Death and Prayer’ organises the black procession.

Here, the hooded men and the Madonna’s dress are black because they recall Mary, who eventually discovered her dead son on the cross.

During both processions, Sorrento is in total silence, with the lights off and the shops closed as the hooded proceed on their march lit by faint torches, accompanied by Gregorian chanting, the famous Miserere.

The whole atmosphere recalls the desperate moments of Christ’s death and passion.

The pathos of the processions during Holy Week manages to involve the local people and tourists, today as in the past: it is a spectacle that literally thrills everyone!