Laura Lopez | Segovia (EFE)
The image of Christ going up this winding street in the historic neighborhood of the walled enclosure, sheltered by new marches composed for the occasion, has overwhelmed residents and visitors, many faithful and some onlookers of Holy Week in Segovia.
This unique moment has been a happy consequence of the works that are currently being carried out on Calle Daoiz -the one that connects the Plaza Mayor with the Alcázar- and which have forced the Parishion of San Andrés to modify its usual route.
“As circumstances have come, we have been adjusting. If it had not been for this, we would not have considered changing the route and thanks to that we have made one much more attractive than in other years,” the president of the parish, Luis Gómez, told EFE.
Unpublished Stations of the Cross for the New Jewish Quarter
Guided by a wooden guide cross with gold decorations, the parishioners -many of them children- carrying torches and dressed in a black tunic with a hood cinched at the waist with a cord and white gloves have opened the processional procession.
Before the passage, different faithful have carried the banner of the Feligresía with the shield embroidered by hand in white silk, the lantern, the censer, the silver naveta from the 16th century and the silver processional cross, from the same century, accompanied by two silver candlesticks
With the sixteen porters carrying the Christ and the band at the end, the procession has paraded from the church of San Andrés through the narrow streets of the historic center of Segovia and has stopped at the fourteen stations of the Via Crucis, one of them in the middle of the Velarde Street, under the Claustra Arch.
There, the band “El Cirineo”, typical of the parishioners, has sung a special march with a hurdy-gurdy – a traditional Castilian string instrument – and then the procession has continued to the Alcazar of Segovia.
The Virgin of Help
Later, the faithful have followed the wall to the Plaza del Socorro, where they have also stopped to honor with another composition the Virgin of Socorro, who was waiting leaning out over the Puerta de San Andrés, the most prominent of the fortification.
After this emotional moment, the procession has started up the narrow staircase of the New Jewish Quarter to continue its way to the Plaza de la Merced and return, once again, to the church.
To carry out this new parade successfully, more rehearsals than usual have been necessary: they began in February and first took place in the church; then, in the Plaza de la Merced and, finally, in the streets themselves to be able to balance the times well, as explained by Luis Gómez.
In the case of the band, the tests began even earlier, in the month of October, since the group has released new marches, of their own composition, for the occasion.
“It’s a very special day, it’s time to start what you’ve been preparing for a lot of months so that everything goes as planned, it’s a day of great devotion,” Gómez recounted.
The Feligresía de San Andrés, founded in 1979, currently has about 180 members and is the first association in Segovia that returned to take its image on a litter, in 2007, after the wheels were imposed from the nineties , something that in Gómez’s opinion gives more “solemnity” and “showiness” to the parade.
It is also a young association, with a recently renewed Board and headed by this parishioner of only 26 years, who believes that the parishioner “has the relief assured.”
Quarry in the neighborhood
“It is a neighborhood of older people but they have always brought their children and the younger ones to live what they have lived through as children, so we have a lot of youth”, he celebrated.
Until the mid-eighties, this Stations of the Cross was carried out with the Reclining Christ, a 17th-century baroque carving by Gregorio Fernández, but since the Cathedral of Segovia limited its use to Good Friday, the role has shifted to Cristo de la Paciencia.
It is a model from the first half of the 16th century that was “repolychromed” and placed on another cross in later times and, although its author is unknown, it is known that this carving corresponds to the Renaissance currents that arrived in Spain at that time. through artists trained in Italian workshops.
That is why the parishioners highlight that it combines “the perfection and beauty of Italy” with “the expressiveness and drama of Spanish taste.” EFE
