A week at the heart of passion
With Easter just around the corner, the Corsicans are preparing for an exceptional week, the culmination of religious fervour and enduring popular traditions.
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- As we approach Easter, The Corsicans prepare for Holy Week by making palm crosses (e crucette), blessed for processions.
- The brotherhoods lead services and ritual marches in Bastia and in the villages, perpetuating traditions such as the granitula or the catenacciu.
- The week comes to a close with a series of intense celebrations, including vigils, blessings, the Passover meal and merendella on Mondays, symbols of renewal.
On this spring day, the sacristy has been transformed into a workshop.
Children and adults bustle about in a happy hubbub. There is chatter and laughter, without ever losing sight of the finned models which, in the hands of the elders who have the know-how to pass on, will become e crucette, A lucky charm that everyone can pass on to their loved ones.
With rigour, patience and skill, the little hands taper the light yellow leaves, a symbol of purity, before starting to weave. In a few hours, more or less sophisticated crosses, as well as stars, fish, ears of corn, even pullezzule, These imposing works of art will have taken shape. Tomorrow, as tradition dictates, these long, meticulous works will be blessed to accompany the ritualised marches of Holy Week (a settimana santa, as we say here), inaugurated by Palm Sunday.
As masters of ceremonies, the Corsican brotherhoods reappear in their fine clothes! Braiding their palms, they too are preparing to enliven parish services and lead processions right up to Resurrection Sunday.
Founded in a spirit of solidarity and guarantors, for centuries in Corsica, of local customs as well as a form of spirituality, these groups of men (sometimes mixed) are part of the religious landscape of Bastia. Each has its own neighbourhood, dress codes, patron saint's day and rituals, including the famous granitula !
To experience from the inside this night-time walk during Holy Week, practised in Erbalonga, on the Cape Corsica, at the northern exit of Bastia, follows the line of the sea shell from which it takes its name, winding up to form a compact point, then unwinding as the colleagues repeat the same song. While the’a cerca, another procession bringing together no fewer than four local brotherhoods, will take you on a 14km journey from church to church through the hamlets of Brandu.
And that's just a taste of what's on offer over the 8 days at the gates of the Bastia region and within the city itself!
Take part in a vigil at Pietranera, closely monitor the catenacciu, the penitent who, wearing a balaclava at dawn, crosses the streets of Bastia with a heavy cross on his back, push open the door of a chapel to discover one of these ephemeral sets produced locally (i sepolcri), depicting the entombment of Christ and welcoming many Bastians to prayer late into the evening... This is what you have to offer Bastia, A total immersion in the heart of the sacred!
L’office of darkness, mysterious and captivating, making the journey even more perfect with the lights off. Come and listen to it blind! A Santa Maria di Lota, On the evening of Maundy Thursday, still in the hands of the confreres, it consecrates Christ's victory over death in a tumult of percussion reminiscent of the earthquake after the crucifixion. And it could just as easily chase the devil away!
Finally, after the noise of the night, another candlelit procession awaits you here, ending on your knees, from the nave to the Holy Sepulchre. This umpteenth Way of the Cross, called e trescinelle, This is the start of a new day in which the brotherhoods and parishioners of Figarella, Mandriale and San Martinu di Lota will embark on a four-hour journey. Taking to the roads and paths, to the sounds of’i canti e i lodi di u venneri santu, Everyone will gather to form a guard of honour, a parata, as a sign of deference and piety.
Then comes Holy Saturday, the day of the blessing of the houses and the new fire into which the branches from the previous year are thrown. Then on Easter, The traditional meal of lamb and sweetmeats, led by the campanile (a large brioche wreath topped with a hard-boiled egg!). The houses will be full of merriment and the bells will ring out the hour of the day. merendella, A Corsican-style Easter Monday picnic that rhymes with renewal and resurrection.
