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Easter in Gandia
BETWEEN TRADITION AND DEVOTION
One of the most important celebrations of the annual
festival calendar of the city of Gandia is the Holy Week. It
has its origins in the Middle Ages. The first news that appear
in the records from the fifteenth century, since at the time
it dramatized the passion of Christ in the Plaza Mayor in
front of the collegiate church. Apparently cadafalcos are
mounted two that were staged in the palaces of Herod and
Caiaphas, and a reproduction of the Garden of Olives. The
drama was played by the residents of the city. Subsequently,
through the streets of the town celebrated the Via Crucis,
where the character representing Jesus was escorted at all
stations by a Roman guard.
In the eighteenth century were aware of the output of a
statue of Our Lady of Sorrows from the Collegiate Church and
the veneration of the Ecce Homo in the neighborhood of
Algepsería street Raval.Ya in the nineteenth century, notably
in 1840, there are references the chapel of San Miguel del
Palazzo Ducale in stating that "in the solemn prayers of the
clergy came in procession to the chapel, where he celebrated
Easter crafts, including the clergy officiating in San
Francisco."
But the current guilds, as we know them today, originated
in the late nineteenth century. Is attributed to Father Jose
Gomar escolapio the impetus for the creation of the first two,
in 1872 the San Pedro, formed by secondary students of the
Pious Schools between 1875 and 1880 and of the Holy Cross
alumni who comprised the same center. Meanwhile, Pascual Sanz
Forés sponsored the founding of the brotherhood of the Holy
Sepulcher in 1873, besides the birth of the Nazarene
brotherhoods, Deposition and the Flagellation.
After the hiatus that saw the Spanish civil war, from the
fifties Gandia Easter is taking a new grassroots support, new
brotherhoods born in different quarters of the city and in
1952 created the Board of Fraternities Mayor, who is
responsible for coordinating the actions of the eighteen
fraternities that are members and through their work is done
the statement of "Fiesta of National Tourist Interest" and
improving year after year, the contents of the festival
program.
THE CONTENTS OF THE PARTY
La Semana Santa de Gandia boots for years, with the
celebration of the proclamation which usually performs a
leading figure in theology, either regional or national level.
The speech has been done in various places how the halls of
the Palazzo Ducale and the collegiate church. As for the
processions, held the first Friday of passion with the
penitential processions of the Blessed Virgin of Mercy and the
Seven Sorrows of the brotherhood of Our Lady of Sorrows.
On Holy Saturday marks the day of the entry of Jesus into
Jerusalem and the procession of the Holy Rosary. As for Palm
Sunday, the morning takes place the Solemn Blessing of Palms
and Ramos and the subsequent procession with the participation
of all sororities. In the evening marks one of the biggest
events of Holy Week in Gandia: the Living Stations of the
Cross by representing the neighborhood of Santa Anna, leaving
the parish church in the mountains finds the hermitage of the
same name.
The creation in 1977 in this neighborhood of the
brotherhood of the Living Last Supper was key to drive a
representation that each year welcomes more visitors who want
to look "in situ" the passion and death of Jesus on the Cross
staged by members of the brotherhood.
Beginning Monday follows another holy processions of the
various guilds following their usual routes for the various
neighborhoods of the city. One of the most anticipated by
their emotions, all Gandia Easter is the traditional meeting
of the Virgin of Sorrows with Our Father Jesus the Nazarene,
in the early hours of the night between Thursday and Good
Friday at the confluence of Rausell street and Passeig de les
Germanies.
This is a special moment to give up the honors with the
sounds of trumpets and performed the usual prayer. Hundreds of
people crowded into the junction to see this long-awaited
meeting between Jesus and his mother the Virgin of Sorrows.
The next day, Good Friday, in the early hours of the morning
takes place the solemn penitential Via Crucis organized by the
Junta Mayor of Fraternities and with the participation of all
the confraternities.
La Semana Santa de Gandia is the culmination of the solemn
celebration of the Holy Burial Procession, held on Good Friday
starting at 19 hours and a usual route that passes through the
center of the city, from Calle Sant Francesc Borja at the
Collegiate. The parade, featuring eighteen steps, is chaired
by the godmother of Gandia Easter each year and the same can
be seen all the monuments, perfectly decorated, in addition to
the various bands of drums and horns that accompany each
brotherhood, vying with each other in quality and solemnity in
the way of parade.
Holy Saturday is the day dedicated to the Virgin of
Solitude and celebrate the traditional Procession of Silence,
while Easter Sunday takes place on the glorious encounter the
Risen Christ and the Virgin of Solitude in Plaça de la
Constitució, which concludes the celebrations semaneros
Gandia.
THE "VISITATIO sepulchri"
The "Visitatio sepulchri" is a representation of sacred
drama lyric writing and music in the sixteenth century by St.
Francis Borgia, the third general of the Society of Jesus,
which eventually became the patron saint of Gandia. His
collection is due to D. Jose Maria Vives Ramiro. This is a
very eloquent way the resurrection of Jesus. From the 1550s
until 1865 was played out between the collegiate route and the
Royal Monastery of Santa Clara.
About the year 1995, the Board Staff of Fraternities and a
group of people related to the cultural world Gandia got their
recovery and was introduced again in the Easter program in the
city. Today this beautiful example of medieval liturgical
drama can be seen in Gandia in two acts: the first one
represents the burial of Jesus Christ and is celebrated on
Good Friday afternoon at the Collegiate Church with assistance
from the Choral Society and the chapter Borja college.
The second resurrection is celebrated in the early hours of
dawn on Easter Sunday. The procession leaves the church to
explore diverse Collegiate streets around and return to the
same temple, which represents the act and the later Easter
Procession. In this act involve much brothers from different
fraternities of the city of Gandia, where Holy Week has
special meaning. | 
