All images ©Kevin Moloney 1995-1996
All images ©Kevin Moloney 1995-1996
Two young alter boys fill a 200-year-old incensor for a reenactment of the washing of the apostles’ feet by Jesus on Holy Thursday in Ouro Prêto. The Holy Week celebrations in the city form a nightly religious theater for the faithful.
A young angel awaits her turn to parade through the streets with hundreds of citizens dressed as biblical figures and saints during one of Holy Week’s many processions in Ouro Prêto.
Wearing huge feather wings, three young angels preside over theatrical reenactments of the Last Supper and Passion of Jesus staged annually by several of the town’s churches. Itself an historical landmark, the town of 60,000 boasts 13 huge 18th-century churches of baroque architecture.
Towering crosses hung with antique statues of Jesus and the two thieves crucified alongside him stand over a crowd in front of Ouro Prêto’s historic Church of St. Francis of Assisi during the reenactment of the removal of Jesus from the cross on Good Friday. A burial procession followed the sermons and music of the reenactment.
Members of the Third Order of St. Francis, a Catholic lay group founded in the area centuries ago, parade through the streets of Ouro Prêto with Our Lady of Sorrows, a representation of St. Mary suffering from the crucifixion of her son, during the funeral procession of Jesus held on Good Friday.
Laying hands on the face of Jesus, a devotee pays homage to the dead Christ after the antique statue was removed from a cross and paraded through the streets in a long funeral procession. Devotees file by the statue — interred for the night in one of Ouro Prêto’s massive churches — touching the wounds in his hands and feet, kissing his crown of thorns and leaving change in a basket for the church.
In preparation for a procession in honor of the resurrection on the Morning of Easter Sunday, citizens of Ouro Prêto lay out an elaborate carpet of sawdust and flower petals through the cobbled streets. Music rolls out of windows and friends chatter through the night of Holy Saturday while preparing the several mile-long carpet.
Marching up the hilly streets of Ouro Prêto, a young angel watches the passing crowd during the resurrection procession of Easter Morning.
Swinging an incensor, a young altar boy makes way for a local priest carrying the Holy Eucharist during Easter Sunday’s procession in Ouro Prêto, Brazil.
Igreja do Carmo, one of Ouro Prêto’s 13 baroque masterpieces, towers above the small city in Brazil’s interior.
