Holy Week in Seville

The festival

What is Holy Week in Seville

Seville’s Holy Week is one of the best-known religious celebrations in the Catholic world and has an official declaration of international tourist interest. From Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, the city’s brotherhoods and confraternities leave their churches in procession, each with its own images, colors and route, making their penitential station at the cathedral. For many Sevillians, it is the most important time of the year, prepared throughout Lent, and the whole city organizes itself around the processions.

The brotherhoods have medieval and early modern origins, and many preserve sculptures from the 16th and 17th centuries by masters of the Sevillian school, such as Juan Martínez Montañés and Juan de Mesa. Each procession usually carries two pasos: one with Christ, in scenes of the Passion, and another with the Virgin, under an embroidered canopy and surrounded by candles and flowers. The pasos are carried from inside by the costaleros, who walk hidden beneath the velvet skirts and move in synchrony, guided by the capataz’s voice and by the hammer beats, the llamador.

In front of and behind the pasos walk the nazarenos, the penitents in tunics and pointed hoods, the capirote, which covers the face, carrying candles, crosses or insignia. Bands of trumpets and drums or musical bands accompany many brotherhoods, while others march in absolute silence. When a paso stops in front of a balcony, someone sometimes sings a saeta, a brief flamenco song dedicated to the image, and the street falls silent to listen. Children follow the processions asking nazarenos for wax to make balls from the drops of the candles.

All brotherhoods pass along the carrera oficial, the common stretch that starts at Plaza de la Campana, where each procession asks permission from the council of brotherhoods, continues along Calle Sierpes, Plaza de San Francisco and Avenida de la Constitución, and enters the cathedral. The highlight of the week is the Madrugá, the night from Maundy Thursday to Good Friday, when some of the most venerated brotherhoods go out, such as El Gran Poder, La Macarena and La Esperanza de Triana, and the city stays awake until dawn. On Easter Sunday, the procession of the Risen One closes the week.

Beyond the cathedral, the processions link neighborhoods with distinctive character: Triana, on the other side of the Guadalquivir, with its brotherhoods leaving and returning over the bridge; La Macarena, with its basilica; the old center, with narrow streets where the pasos pass almost brushing the walls. For visitors, Seville’s Holy Week is an experience of faith, art and local tradition, lived in the streets with respect and patience to wait.