“Santanchem Pursanv” and its origin
The Penitential Procession of Saints (Santanchem Pursanv) was held on Monday, 4th April, 2022, at St. Andrew’s Church, Goa-Velha. Thousands of devotees from different walks of life, took part in this solemn procession. Given below is a detailed history of this procession.
THE BEGINNING OF PROCESSION
*Rosario F. Fernandes
About eight Franciscan friars reached Anjediva Island on August 22, 1500, and began to spread Christianity and in 1506, they built a Church on the Island. The Christianity began to spread in Goa when Affonso de Albuquerque victoriously entered the city of Ela, Goa, on November 25, 1510; it was St. Catherine’s day. Franciscan Friar Joao Alemao and Friar Francisco da Rocha (or Friar Rocha probably arrived on December 22 of the same year and later he became the Vicar of Old-Goa Church) and some Dominican friars were on the ship as chaplains, and soon a Church was set up dedicated to the Saint. The Roman Catholic faith began to spread in Go a after the arrival of Portuguese. The Franciscans were the first religious Order to arrive in Goa in 1517, building their first Church at Old Goa that was completed in 1527 and dedicated to their founder St. Francis of Assisi. When, the first appointed Bishop Dom Francisco de Melo died before arriving in Goa. Dom Joao da Albuquerque (Franciscan from Spain) was appointed as second Bishop but became the first Bishop of Goa to take charge of the Diocese on March 25, 1539. St. Francis Xavier arrived in 1542 followed by other Missionaries and religious orders that settled in Goa. Franciscans started their missionary work in Bardez Taluka in 1550 from Verem and later they built twenty-four Churches in Bardez Taluka. By the end of the 16th century, Goa had already reached its peak and referred to as “Golden Goa” or “Lisbon of the East”. Thence, Goa remained under the Portuguese rule from 1510 to 1961.
When Don Rui Lourence De Tavora was Viceroy of Portuguese Goa, he handed the abandoned hillock of Govapuri (present Pilar) over to the reformed Franciscans whose Commissary General was Friar Luis De Consecao, and there they established themselves in 1613. The Franciscans built their monastery on the hill dedicated to Our Lady of Pilar and set up a University. They tried to make it a great religious center in Goa. They started a procession of the Franciscan Third Order as a practice of penance for the Lenten period from Pilar hillock. “According to living tradition when Franciscans established their base at Pilar hillock, they started a penitential procession, probably the ‘Station of the Cross’, during the Lent season to venerate the ‘Veil of Veronica’ (please see page no. 36) which they brought from Rome and were giving annual blessings of the Holy Face to the pilgrims. The Franciscan Friars used to carry the Holy Face in procession; while the neighbouring Jesuit parish Churches celebrated evert Sunday Lent services in their parish Churches including Passion Sunday. Therefore, the Franciscan scheduled their Procession on Monday and they included the image of Jesus in from of Pilate ‘Ecce Homo’ as the subject matter of the day. At the Vatican, the traditional Veronica Blessing takes place on 5th Sunday of the Lent-Passion Sunday at 5pm every year. By reasonable thinking, the Franciscan Friars started the procession of the Holy Face at Pilar hillock based on the Vatican’s annual blessings of the ‘Veil of Veronica’. So this is the reason for the saying that “One in Rome and one in Goa-Velha”. Certainly, the Franciscan Commissary General of India Friar Luis De Consecao and the Custos (Guardian) Friar Francisco de Arruida by their guidance the procession started from Pilar hillock between the years 1614 and 1617 (possibly, in 1617 because Franciscans completed 100 years of missionary work in Goa in that year).
Rome is the home for processions; however, there is no ‘Procession of Saints’ in Rome. The local villages narrated to the Capuchins about former glories of Govapuri, the procession of Pundits and Monks and demanded to see their tradition, but the Catholic Church does not support admiration to the living or acknowledge them as Saints, except after death. Hence, to satisfy this craving of the local population the Franciscans tried to revive the traditional processions of old. Therefore, towards the end of the 17th century the Franciscans instituted a penitential ‘procession of Saints’ and presented as models for imitation in which 65 life size images belonging to their Order that were taken in procession through the streets of Goa-Velha from their Monastery at Pilar hillock.
Queen Maria II of Portugal in 1835 issued a decree ordering the expulsion of al religious orders, including the Franciscans, in Portugal and her colonies. Thus, the Pilar hill was abandoned; the Confrarias of the third Order of the Franciscans and of the Holy Sepulchre and that of Mary Immaculate Conception were transferred to St. Andrew’s Church in Goa-Velha, the procession of Saints was then stopped. The Pilar Monastery was closed and entrusted to a non-Christian villager from 1835 to 1855. He had many cattle. He grazed the cows on the hill and tied them in the Church during the night. Soon the St. Andrew’s Church too reached a dilapidated state. By 1841, most of the belongings of this Church were transferred to Pilar Monastery. During this period, many images and vestment were uncared, vandalized and destroyed.
A group of Goan Carmelites, who had also been expelled by order of the Portuguese government from their Monastery in Chimbel village, applied for permission to stay together as a community, the permission was granted. In 1854, they began to live again as religious in Chimbel; houwever, in the beginning of Monsoon season, they experienced a wicked weather, the roof tiles of their weak building started flying or falling on their heads. Therefore, they had to seek new safety; they asked permission to reside in Pilar Monastery. The permission was granted again on condition that they could not accept new members in the Carmelite Order and they could not appear outside the Pilar Monastery dressed in the brown habit of their Order. They were to stay there until the last of their existing members died out. Fr. Cyrilo de Anunciacao was the last Carmelite who lived an austere life in the Monastery until he died there in 1887. Now the Pilar Monastery is under the Missionary Society of St. Francis Xavier and is a world famous pilgrimage center of Venerable Fr. Agnelo de Souza.
Meanwhile, the present new Church of St. Andrew was completed around January 1868. The Franciscan Third Order (Laymen) started functioning in that Church; the belongings kept in the Pilar Monastery, which were in the possession of Carmelites, were shifted to the new Church under the guidance of Fr. Cyrilo de Anunciacao. Therefore, the penitential procession of Saints with the residual of about 25 charols (tableaux) re-started from the new Church of St. Andrew Goa-Velha in the Lent of 1868. New images were added in 1889. 1895, and Fr. Mousinho Afonso Athaide then administrator of Goa-Velha Church writes in the souvenir of the procession in 1985, that three more images were added being one of St. Andrew the Apostle in 1981, the other of St. Francis Xavier in 1984 and that of St. Peter the Apostle in 1985. However, after resetting-out, the ‘procession of Saints’ never again was taken through the streets of Pilar, Malwara and surrounding areas. According to local legends, when it was decided to transfer all the images to the new Church of St. Andrew at Goa-Velha, the neighbouring parishioners of St. Lawrence Church opposed the idea because the procession used to come on their streets of Malwara (now in Agassaim village). Therefore, the Carmelite Friars called both the elders of the parishioners of St. Andrew and St. Lawrence to the Pilar Monastery. However, the parishioners of St. Lawrence Agassaim never showed up according to the saying: “then the elders of Agassaim were frustrated over the idea of the Carmelite Friars and did not turn up to communicate their views, but they went home and fell into a deep slumber”. Meanwhile the parishioners of Goa-Velha lifted all the images of the Saints to their parish Church. Therefore, the ‘procession of Saints’ came to Goa-Velha in the new Church of St. Andrew.