The annual Festas do Senhor Santo Cristo dos Milagres has been part of Azorean religious and cultural life for over 300 years (1700-present), and it was celebrated for the first time in Toronto on May 15, 1966 by the thousands of Portuguese immigrants who had left their island home but who had not forgotten the importance of this annual feast.

I have already written and shared my father’s photographs of the first procession that took place in Toronto and also the photographs he took the following year, in 1967

I would like to acknowledge the 60^th anniversary date by reposting some of my father’s photographs documenting this historical moment in the Portuguese Canadian diaspora as well as write about an intimate story that links the festa from the Azores to the one held in Canada that first year.

My mother and I were still living in São Miguel in 1966 and while she sent my father photographs (photographer unknown) of the procession that took place in the city of Ponta Delgada, he sent her photographs of the first procession that took place in Toronto.

I find it extraordinary that my parents, in their thirties, apart from each other for three years with only weekly letters between them, decided to share these photographs with each other. It would have been so much simpler now, so immediate; a quick photo taken and sent on WhatsApp, not to mention a live video chat, the way we do things now. They had to mail these photographs, received weeks after the event, but still connecting them meaningfully to one of the most important celebrations of Azorean life and as a reminder of their love for each other.

My family connection to the devotion of Senhor Santo Cristo is deep and bridges the decades. My father became a member of the Irmandade do Senhor Santo Cristo until his death, giving of his time each year as a volunteer to set up the outdoor church lights and displays around St. Mary’s. He also carried the andor in procession many times until he was no longer able to participate.

Over the years, I, too, have seen the procession of Senhor Santo Cristo both in Toronto and in the Azores, forever linking my experiences of religious devotion with family life.

As an altar boy at St. Mary’s church I was in the processions of the early 70s. In this photograph, I am the first boy in the forefront of this picture from 1970.

My father, who had come to Canada in 1965, saw that first procession at St. Mary’s in 1966, along with my paternal grandparents, my aunt and uncle, and my two little cousins, who had all been the first of our family to come to Canada. My grandmother once told the story of how everyone cried with emotion that day, remembering their family members still in the Azores, and how there was no filarmónica band to play the Hino do Senhor Santo Cristo. As a substitute, a gramophone record of the hymn was played from the back of a truck accompanying the procession through the streets of Toronto.

Father Alberto Cunha

outdoor Mass in 1966, during the sermon

outdoor Mass in 1967

Mariano Rego * carrying the processional lantern, my father the second man behind him, in 1972 (photographer unknown)

*I am grateful to Manuel Geraldes, a long-standing member of the Comissão do Senhor Santo Cristo, who identified his father, Antonio Andre Geraldes as the man in my father’s 1966 photograph of Senhor Santo Cristo, carrying the andor on the left side. He was president and one of the founders of the festa, along with Manuel Arruda, Tony Vaz, Manuel Ferias, Anton Esckia, and a few others.  Father Alberto Cunha, in the same photograph, came to St Mary’s in February of 1966 and was an instrumental figure in promoting the festas of those early years.

*The statue of Senhor Santo Cristo was donated in 1964 by Mariano do Rego, a famous Portuguese guitarist, in gratitude and thanksgiving for a cure of his wife’s grave illness after praying to Santo Cristo. Thanks to his act of generosity, the Azorean immigrant community was able to have a bit of home recreated in the diaspora. More about his life can be watched on this Gente da Nossa video.

Antonio Cabral de Melo in 1966

My father had this postcard size image in his car as a sign of his devotion to Senhor Santo Cristo.

In memory of my parents, Antonio and Berta de Melo, and of their devotion to Senhor Santo Cristo

Emanuel Melo, writer living in Toronto, Canada. Maintains the blog: https://thetorzorean.com/