PhD Program in Historical studies
The Holy Week of Zaragoza
Holy Week in ZaragozaThe processions, confraternities and pasos of Semana Santa in Zaragoza are described in detail on the site http://www.zaragoza.es/ciudad/turismo/es/semanasanta. Each association has its own web page with historical information and current news. brings together 24 confraternities. The coordination of the shows is entrusted to the Junta Coordinadora de Cofradías de la Semana Santa de Zaragoza (the Coordinating Body of the Confraternities of Holy Week of Zaragoza), founded in 1948. Each Cofradía carries at least one paso in procession: a term which in Spanish stands for the wooded pageant which depicts a scene from the Passion of Jesus. Some associations have two groups of statues dedicated to Christ and a pageant dedicated to the Virgin of Sorrows. This is the case of the Real Cofradía del Prendimiento del Señor y el Dolor de la Madre de Dios, which has two pasos dedicated to the Arrest of Christ in the Garden of Olives, and one depicting the Virgin Mary.
The oldest confraternity of Zaragoza is the Muy Ilustre, Antiquísima y Real Hermandad de la Preciosísima Sangre de Nuestro Señor Jesucristo y Madre de Dios de Misericordia (Most Holy, Ancient and Royal Brotherhood of the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Mother of God of Mercy), which, during the Good Friday procession, brings out the paso of the Burial of Jesus. This is the last act of the Via Crucis on Good Friday (called precisely the Santo Entierro, the Holy Burial), in which, step by step, with the help of statuary groups, the Mysteries of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ are recounted. The Hermandad de la Sangre de Cristo (the Brotherhood of the Blood of Christ) has staged this procession since the first centuries of the Early Modern age. The pasos of the confraternity date back to the late eighteenth century. The organization of the Santo Entierro was the cause of dispute between the confraternity and the Venerable Orden Tercera de San Francisco de Asís (Venerable Third Order of Saint Francis of Assisi), which also boasted a tradition of Easter processional rituals. This dispute regarding Good Friday, was resolved in favor of the confraternity in 1827. During the nineteenth century, the association commissioned the construction of other statuary groups. In the early twentieth century, however, there was renewal of the old pasos and the construction of new ones. During the years of the Second Republic and the Civil War (1936-1939), the procession was interrupted for a few years and the pasos risked ending up destroyed in a fire. Since 1935, however, Holy Week in Zaragoza underwent two major changes: the pasos were fitted with wheels for easy transport; more than twenty confraternities were set up, who took care of one of the old pasos of the old Hermandad or adopted new ones. Zaragoza’s Semana Santa has been declared an event of National Touristic Interest.