02 Jun Easter on Italy’s Amalfi Coast
Olive branches on Palm Sunday? I was intrigued by the concept even before I discovered that the branches were to be festooned in small salamis, miniature cheeses, and occasionally a fresh fish. I was on Italy’s Amalfi coast for Holy Week, and curious to see its famed processions that had evolved from a cultural past influenced by ancient Greeks, Spanish, French and Romans. My first procession was Palm Sunday in Positano.
As I watched Positano residents wave local olive branches during their Catholic version of the Palm Sunday procession, I was reminded of waving palm fronds as a child at the United Methodist church where my father was pastor. The all-important palms had been imported to our small church in eastern Washington’s desert plains. It was wine country and I now wondered why we had never used grape vines at our services. The olive branches were culturally correct in this olive growing area, and additionally symbolized peace. The decorations that hung from the branches – salami, cheese, chocolates and other sweets, eggs, flowers, ribbons, olives, assorted breads, and fresh fish (rare, due to smell I was told) – were requests for what God might provide in the next year. The crowds both parted for and flocked around the priest and his party to receive the sprinkled holy water and blessing that they hoped would inspire a good harvest of the items dangling from their olive branches.
The next Easter highlight was the Spanish-derived penitentiary processions surrounding Good Friday, for which I was in Sorrento. Organized by fraternal orders from various churches, I saw my first on the night of Holy Thursday. The route was to pass along Corso Italia, the main street through the historic district, which was inconveniently under construction. At the hour the parade was to begin, the construction crew was frantically removing equipment and sweeping the street in preparation for the weekend’s festivities. The last broom was stowed just minutes before the procession was anticipated to arrive. The crew proudly patted one another on the shoulder before clearing out, but it seemed they had time. Not only was the procession later than anticipated, they had changed routes entirely.
Strains of music led me to the next square over where a band played a somber tune. A line of hooded figures stretched behind, wrapping down the orange-tree lined street and around the central park. The figures wore black and white and many carried props – crosses, banners, or items from the crucifixion story; the cock that crowed thrice, crowns of thorns, whips, ropes, and chains, to name a few. A handful of master of ceremonies whose faces were visible roved the street, using staffs to ensure proper spacing and to discipline fidgeting children. Mothers hovered at the edge of the parade, stepping in to adjust hoods whose eye holes had drifted too far to be of use, or beckoning for a quick picture of their costumed child.
This was the parade of a weeping mother Mary, ‘Mother of Sorrows Procession’. A statue of the virgin holding a handkerchief was carried by a collection of burly men led by small children bearing flowers and a cluster of clergy. They left the procession to enter every church along the route, ostensibly to seek Mary’s missing child. Blessings were given both inside and outside the church before this sub-party led the procession to the next church and their quest began anew while the hooded figures returned to formation in the new square. As I later learned, this was a comparatively small and personable procession, somewhat disregarded by locals and lacking crowds of spectators. The ‘real’ Mother of Sorrows Procession occurred a few hours later, at 3am, actually on Good Friday morning.
I dragged myself out of bed and into the frigid night air, requiring the hotel’s groggy guard to open the gates as I ventured onto the streets to seek this second procession. I discovered them at the same neighboring church square where I’d met the previous evening’s procession. This one shared all the elements of the first – the band, the formation of hooded figures with props, the magistrating leaders and the holy search party accompanying the Virgin Mary’s weeping statue into the sanctuary. Yet this procession was bigger, with fancier props, dressed all in white and with a slightly larger crowd despite the early hour. There was less fidgeting, no mothers taking pictures, and the participants seemed aloof, though not above silently turning to pose for the audience and particularly the team of photographers that wove between figures, shoving cameras into their faces.
My final parade, the ‘Procession of the Dead Christ’, was Good Friday night. After having attended two others, I thought I knew the routine. I even knew the locals shortcut to get from one square to the other in front of the procession for better marching shots. I strode confidently to the church square where I’d met the other two processions, only to discover a crowd so thick I couldn’t wedge myself street-side. I watched in dismay as hooded figures dressed all in black marched steadily past, making them and their fancier props, a majestic stuffed rooster in particular, nearly impossible to photograph in the dark. The figures in this procession were disengaged from the audience; even the singers, whose faces weren’t covered, didn’t so much as glance to the side. They marched. The priests, ceremonial guards, and figures carrying a statue of a dead Jesus wearing a crown of thorns now inserted before the weeping Mary statue, plodded steadily forward without so much as a pause. My short cut was so clogged with people that the procession had already passed by the time I arrived in the main square. This was a different procession, a somber affair that felt as dark as it looked.
The spell was broken with the rising of the Easter sun though. Sorrento buzzed to life. The section of street that the construction crew had cleared now held a puppet show and its gelato eating audience. Bakeries bustled with folks buying ‘Pastiera’, the ricotta-based Easter pie of the region, or ‘Casatiello’, a salami and cheese filled bread wrapped around a hardboiled egg. Every other shop sold the traditional chocolate eggs, some too large to fit in a carry-on bag and all allegedly containing surprises. The whole city was as packed and festive as any street party I’ve ever seen, and the celebrations continued into Monday’s Easter holiday when Italian families apparently picnic along the coast.
To me, it seemed the Easter traditions of the Amalfi Coast were an exotic blend of the various cultures that had influenced the region. It was exciting, and yet I’m struck by the fact that the most enduring of these traditions was probably the final day of picnicking. Food, family and breath-taking scenery – these have no doubt been essential to celebrations along the Amalfi Coast since the ancient Greeks settled the area over 2,000 years ago.
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