Seven Year Rites of Guardia Sanframondi: processions every 7 years

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The slowest rites in Campania that revolve around the number Seven are in fact celebrated every seven years, the local processions take place over the course of a week and the last procession lasts about seven hours. A slow ritual dynamic that begins on the Monday following August 15th, where the four districts of Guardia Sanframondi (Croce, Portella, Fontanella and Piazza) with a rigorous sequence organize two processions each, a first procession of penance and a second of communion for then conclude on Sunday with the general one which sees the participation of all the districts united together in a very long procession.

The rites stage the “Misteri”, representations of biblical events revisited in a theatrical key, born in the Middle Ages to disseminate the sacred writings to the population. Today, during the event, more than one hundred are interpreted with over two thousand participants including men, women and children, who remain fixed and silent during the processional route in their interpretation and poses. This event brings the whole community closer to the Sacraments of penance, confession, Eucharist and communion, a rite of collective purification which every seven years becomes the possibility of establishing contact with the divine, bringing together over 500 Flagellants and Battenti to blood, Penitents with white habit and hood with dark circles, citizens of Guardia and nearby towns to make the tribute of faith to the Virgin as great and visible as possible.

It is a very ancient devotion whose origins remain unclear, the veneration of a wooden statue depicting the Virgin with the Child Jesus, worshiped as “Madonna dell’Assunta”. From oral tradition and historical publications we know that these processions have always taken place in the same way as in the four districts of the town which bring this strong religious experience to life, but only since the last century the seven-yearly cadence has been adopted, an important symbolic number sacred to Catholics and Jews.