Devotees defy orders at largest Nazareno procession in years

The procession of the ‘Black Nazarene’ image from an open-air stadium called the Quirino Grandstand, through the streets of Manila and back to Quiapo Church drew 5.5 million participants.

Millions of Filipino devotees joined the annual Feast of Jesus Nazareno in the longest procession in the Philippines’ recent history. 

This year’s Nazareno procession in Manila on 9 January lasted 30 hours and 50 minutes, beginning at 4 a.m. on 9 January and ending at 10:50 a.m. the next day. Previous processions lasted for 22 hours or less, but authorities said the number of devotees and their behaviour made this year’s procession longer than usual. 

The local church reported that 5.5 million people participated in the procession, while 4 million others joined week-long church activities related to the feast. At least four people died during the procession.

The feast honours a seventeenth-century statue of a dark-skinned suffering Christ, popularly called the “Black Nazarene”, which devotees believe to be miraculous. Many try to touch the ropes, or even climb onto the chassis, of the carriage that takes the image from the open-air stadium called the Quirino Grandstand, through the streets of Manila and finally back to Quiapo Church, which has housed the image for centuries.

The Nazareno has often fuelled intense emotions among devotees, to the point that many of them are willing to defy instructions from the local church.

This year, the official conclusion came at 4 a.m. on 10 January, around 24 hours after the procession started, when the Quiapo Church rector Fr Jade Licuanan said the parish was cutting the event short because the Department of Health had reported that its medics and health workers, assigned as first responders, were already exhausted.

Licuanan directed that the Nazareno image be temporarily housed at San Sebastian Church, around one kilometre away from Quiapo Church. However, devotees refused to heed the rector and pulled the Nazareno carriage on to Quiapo. 

Licuanan explained in a later press conference that while the Nazareno procession is a spiritual activity, “we don’t disregard the physical welfare of people”.

“It’s a very beautiful spiritual exercise,” he said, “but mind you, God is also after the welfare of our physical body”.

Quiapo Church said that to address these problems, it is considering a shorter route for the Nazareno procession next year.

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