A 200-YEAR-OLD HOLY SPIRIT

The Holy Spirit is the biggest festival for the Azorean people, and its celebration is the bond that unites our communities.

Our devotion to it is intertwined with our history, and its significance extends to our diaspora.

It is common to the nine islands, 19 municipalities, and 155 parishes of the Autonomous Region of the Azores and to almost all of the 17 Houses of the Azores in Portugal, Brazil, the United States, Canada, Uruguay, and Bermuda.

For this reason, Azores Day itself is associated with the Monday of the Holy Spirit, as decided by the Azorean parliament in 1980.

The festivities in honor of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity are, in themselves, a traveling ritual.

Born in mainland Portugal in the early 14th century, they traveled to the Azores archipelago from the 16th century onwards.

Since then, they have assumed a dominant importance in popular culture.

From here, they traveled to Brazil in the 17th century, becoming a significant presence from north to south in different and distant states such as Maranhão, Minas Gerais, Goiás, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul, and, of course, Espírito Santo.

At the end of the 19th century, following the Azorean diaspora, they traveled to North America.

They first stood out in the United States, from California to New England, especially in the states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, but also in Florida, Nevada, and Montana.

They then took hold in Canada, in provinces such as Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba, but also in British Columbia and Alberta.

And they even reached the archipelagos of Hawaii and Bermuda.

The Festas do Divino in Azorean communities are as old and representative as our own diaspora.

This is the case in Brazil with the state of Espírito Santo and, in particular, with the municipality of Viana.

It was the Brazilian municipality of Viana that officially inaugurated the cycle of European immigration to Espírito Santo in 1813. More than 200 years ago, German and Italian immigrants arrived.

To reduce the shortage of agricultural labor and help populate the banks of the first road connecting Vitória and Minas, Azoreans were also called upon.

Paulo Fernandes Viana, the pioneer who gave the city its name, brought 53 families from the Azores who contributed to the settlement of this municipality.

The Azoreans received land, houses, tools, ox carts, or horses, settled near the Jucu River, and began growing wheat and rice, also improving the corn and cassava crops already known to the natives.

Thus was born the municipality of Viana, officially created on July 23, 1862, by separation from Vitória, more than 160 years ago.

This historical background helps us understand that the Feast of the Holy Spirit, accompanying Azorean emigration to different parts of the American continent, arrived in Viana with the first Azoreans in the first quarter of the 19th century, almost half a century before the official creation of the municipality itself.

In fact, according to information from the Viana City Hall, the origin of this tradition dates back to 1815, when about 50 Azorean families embarked for Brazil to populate strategic regions, including the then Sertão de Santo Agostinho, an area that today is part of the Viana territory. These immigrants arrived bringing customs, devotion, and religious practices that took root in their new land. One of these milestones was the construction of the Mother Church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição, listed as a state heritage site since 1983, which began in 1815 and was inaugurated in 1817, the same year that the first edition of the Festa do Divino Espírito Santo took place.

This bicentennial festival is, above all, a religious expression of popular devotion that spans successive generations of descendants in the municipality of Viana. Every year, the Flag of the Seven Gifts is sent to families, followed by a novena, a procession to the House of the Empress, a procession to the House of the Emperor, Holy Mass celebrated by the Bishop of Vitória, and the drawing of the Emperors for the following year.

But this festival is also an affirmation of the identity of the municipality of Viana itself, a cultural encounter between the past and the present, the historical foundation of the community’s future.

Here is tradition at the service of the future.

_____

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

Excerpt from the message referring to the 208th Festival of the Divine Spirit of the Municipality of Viana, in the State of Espírito Santo, Brazil, held in May/June 2025