Holy Week: What is it about?

Holy Week

What the
What Holy Week?
The tradition of parading statues during the week of the Passion or Semana de Pasión in Almeria is relatively new. If we exclude the Brotherhood of Soledad, founded in the 16th century, the rest of the brotherhoods that parade our city are all from the 20th century. The brotherhoods of el Entierro, la borriquita, las Angustias and el Encuentro all originated in the twenties. Those of Estudiantes, Prendimiento , Amor, and Silencio were founded in the mid forties.
Following the Civil War, the city of Almeria lost its processions, apart from the honourable case of the Brotherhood of Estudiantes, whose members, Oración en el Huerto and Esperanza, have marched uninterruptedly until the present day. At the end of the seventies, with the return of democracy, diverse groups of young people decided to reorganize the brotherhoods of the city in order to parade the streets once again. Therefore, in 1978, Prendimiento returned to the streets and the other brotherhoods gradually followed suit. The eighties saw the birth of new brotherhoods such as La cena, El Perdón and Macarena. Other brotherhoods such as Pasión, Gran Poder, Los Angeles, la Estrella, Coronación, el Hospital, la Caridad y La Unidad. were created in the nineties.

Today, the Holy Week of Almeria boasts a total of twenty-one brotherhoods which, alongside the procession of the Ressurection organized by the association of brotherhoods, present a total of twenty-two processions during the days of la Pasión.
In this way, the Holy Week of Almeria has gone on growing, as much in the number of brotherhoods as in cultural heritage and followers, to the point of being declared as being of National Tourist Interest in 2005. No one day is more important than any other and, from the Saturday of la Pasión until the Sunday of Resurreción, thousands of local people go out onto the streets to enjoy the processions.
None of the brotherhoods in Almeria carry out what is known as the “Station of Penitence” or “Estación de Penitencia” given that they do not give worship to any monument with the Body of Christ and therefore only march. However, each and every one of them does have to pass along the official route. The only brotherhood that does carry out their procession with “stations” is that of el Entierro, which enters Almeria’s cathedral in order to worship the Body of Christ, which rests in the temple’s monstrance.

The Guide to Holy Week in Andalusia

Almería