Santo Cristo in North America

As we saw in the last chronicle, the famous festival in honor of Senhor Santo Cristo dos Milagres was born in Ponta Delgada in 1700 and crossed the Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro in 1911. It then gained an essential dimension in North America, remaining very much alive in the United States, Canada, and Bermuda.

The most Azorean city in America – Fall River, in Massachusetts, on the east coast of the United States, with most of its population coming from successive generations from or descendants of the island of São Miguel – could not fail to register a notable and lasting presence of the cult of Senhor Santo Cristo.

Santo Cristo is the oldest and largest Portuguese parish in Fall River. It is also the only one dedicated to Ecce Homo in the entire state of Massachusetts.

It was officially constituted on June 26, 1892, and its traditional feast day continues. It takes place on a summer weekend, with a Mass and procession of promises on Saturday, a Mass and solemn procession on Sunday, and a famous festival on both days.

Also in Massachusetts, but on the outskirts of Boston, the Portuguese community of Cambridge holds its annual Senhor Santo Cristo festivities. Inspired by the celebration in Ponta Delgada, they take place in the church of Santo António and, like the latter, are held in May, on the fifth Sunday after Easter.

On the other side of America, in California, the first feast in honor of Lord Santo Cristo took place more than 100 years ago 1907, in the church of San José in Oakland.

This first Portuguese church on the west coast of the United States was started in 1892 by Father João Tavares, a native of Vila Franca do Campo, but was demolished half a century ago.

In 1913, a second Sociedade do Santo Cristo was founded in South San Francisco as a branch of the Real Associação Autonómica Micaelense, a mutual aid association founded in Massachusetts in 1905.

Since then, the Society of the Holy Christ of San Mateo County has served the Portuguese-American community of the State of California by preserving and disseminating Portuguese culture, especially with the annual organization of the Feast of the Holy Christ held on the same date as its counterpart in Ponta Delgada. Its centenary was festively celebrated in 2013.

Also, in the city of Hamilton, the capital of the Bermuda Islands, our community, especially from the island of São Miguel, holds its feast in honor of Senhor Santo Cristo dos Milagres every May in the church of Santa Maria. It is now preparing to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary in 2025.

Even further north, in the most recent destination of Azorean emigration, Senhor Santo Cristo is present in different Canadian provinces: Ontario to Quebec and Manitoba to Alberta.

This, the oldest religious festival of the Portuguese communities in Canada, takes on a unique dimension in Toronto. It has been held here every year since 1966, bringing together thousands of Azoreans at the Church of Santa Maria.

The replicated image of Ecce Homo from the Ponta Delgada shrine was given to the Toronto church more than three decades ago by the Ribeiragrandense emigrant Mariano do Rego.

Its procession incorporates representations from community institutions such as the Associação do Senhor Santo Cristo and Portuguese philharmonics such as the Banda do Santo Cristo de Toronto, the oldest in the community, founded in 1966.

In addition to Toronto, the Canadian province of Ontario also has another feast of the Holy Christ in the Portuguese parish of Nossa Senhora de Fátima in Brampton. After all the others, it takes place in September and is already considered one of the biggest religious manifestations of the Portuguese in Canada.

Even in Canada’s national capital, Ottawa, a Portuguese church is dedicated to Senhor Santo Cristo.

The Portuguese parish of Senhor Santo Cristo in Ottawa was officially founded in 1988 and serves a population of 4,000 parishioners under the direction of Franciscan friars from Brazil. The most significant public manifestation of its religious activity occurs every year in July, with the procession of Senhor Santo Cristo (Holy Christ), which carries his image through the streets surrounding the Portuguese church.

Like Toronto in Ontario, Montreal in Quebec has been celebrating the Lord Saint Christ of Miracles since 1966. It takes place in May in the parish of Holy Cross and is the largest religious event in Montreal and the surrounding area.

But this cult reaches as far as the Azoreans themselves.

In Winnipeg, the provincial capital of Manitoba, the festival also takes place in May, inside and outside the church of the Immaculate Conception. It follows the traditional format, with the statue moved on Saturday and the solemn Eucharist followed by a procession on Sunday.

Even further across the Atlantic, the Azorean community in the province of Alberta venerates the Lord Holy Christ in Edmonton. In 1974, the local community acquired an image of Lord Santo Cristo in Portugal and decided to celebrate an annual feast in his honor on the second Sunday of June, Father’s Day, as if to say: Our Father, pray for us in the Azores and wherever there are Azoreans…

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José Andrade is the Regional Director for Communities of the Government of the Autonomous Region of the Azores

This article is from his book Transatlântico – As Migrações nos Açores (2023)

Translated by Diniz Borges