Holy Week in Valladolid

The Holy Week in Valladolid is one of the main tourist attractions, and cultural and religious events of Valladolid and the surrounding province during Holy Week in Spain. It boasts of renowned polychrome sculptures, created mainly by sculptors such as Juan de Juni and Gregorio Fernández, who were active when the city served as the imperial court. The city's National Sculpture Museum has a total of 42 images (distributed in the corresponding pasos) for the processions. The Holy Week in Valladolid is known to depict the Passion with great fidelity, rigor and detail.
In addition to the artistic and catechetical (instructional) value of its religious imagery, the Week is characterized by devotion, sobriety, silence and respect for the brotherhoods and the public, and by unique acts such as the "General Procession of the Sacred Passion of the Redeemer" and "Sermon of the Seven Words" in the Plaza Mayor, which recalls the autos de fé (ritual of public penance) of the 16th century. For these reasons, this celebration was declared a Fiesta of International Tourist Interest in 1980 (the first Holy Week celebration in Spain to have such a designation), and in 2014 work began to have it recognized as a representation of intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO.
The city's twenty brotherhoods (five were historical and the rest were created beginning in 1920) have a total of fifty-nine different pasos, which are described by the brotherhood that owns each of them, and hold a total of thirty-three floats (processions) as well as the "Proclamation" and the "Sermon of the Seven Words".
The processions begin the Friday before Good Friday and continue until the Sunday of Resurrection. Hundreds of penitents or cofrades take part in the parades, carrying the pasos or walking the old streets of the city with crosses, flags or candles. Thousands of people, including locals and visitors attend the events. The silence is only interrupted by the sound of drums and trumpets. The pasos are the core of the festival. They consist of a wooden sculpture, or group of sculptures, that narrates a scene from the Passion of Christ. They are carried by porters, who are members of the brotherhoods, on a platform or staves. The processions are organized by hermandades and cofradías (religious brotherhoods). Members precede the pasos dressed in penitential robes with capirotes, (tall, pointed hoods with eye-holes). The capirotes were designed so the faithful could repent in anonymity, without being recognised as self-confessed sinners. Each brotherhood has its own distinct colors, reflected in its members' costumes, that distinguish them from other brotherhoods.
The Archbishopric of Valladolid, carefully following the liturgy, has been considering the day of the Holy Saturday as non-liturgical, and therefore, not suitable for holding processions. Based on this consideration, only a procession of Solitude is held in the morning, with absence of any adornment to the image of Nuestra Señora de las Angustias. The transfer of the Recumbent Christ is held in the afternoon and closes the Passion. Visitors are still waiting for the Resurrection. Special importance is then offer to the Blessed Virgin, a penitential act that is celebrated in the church of Vera Cruz.
During the Friday and Saturday of Passion Week and into Holy Week itself, the following brotherhoods make their penitential processions in Valladolid, by the order of precedence of their entry into the main church and by the date of their founding.