Procession in honour of San Michele Arcangelo
| Cosa | Manifestazione religiosa, Tradizioni & folklore |
|---|---|
| Quando | maggio |
| Dove | Civitella del Tronto |
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In the past, on the 8th of May and on the 29th of September, processions were organized as these were the periods of transhumance of the sheep herds from the mountain pastures to the plains and viceversa.
The worship of San Michele Arcangelo was introduced by the Byzantines during the first centuries of Christianity and was adopted by the Lombard people, after having won a decisive battle against the Byzantines on the 8th of May 663.
This rite reached Abruzzo through the transhumant shepherds coming from Apulia, where the sanctuary of Monte Sant'Angelo nel Gargano was founded in the late 5th century, which at the time was recognized as the most important centre for cultural diffusion within southern-central Italy.
Often San Michele Arcangelo, venerated most of all by shepherd communities, replaced the former pagan divinity Ercole Curino. The overlapping of these two divinities is due to an iconographic affinity on one hand (Ercole brandishes a club and S.Angelo a sword) and a mythological one on the other (one slays monsters and the other the devil). Within the traditional reality the Saint is linked to the necessities of the agropastoral cycle, thus becoming the protector of germinative lunar cycles and propitiator of harvesting.
In this context, the cave represents a cultural space which combines the propitiatory values bound to the cult and two sacred primigenial elements such as water and rock. Here, inside the caves, Mother Nature allows to feel her regenerative energy as the underground and the earthly world come into contact; water represents the life blood par excellence and is the symbol of fertility and purification.