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More than 2 million barefoot devotees gather for an annual religious procession in the predominantly Catholic Philippines to honour and pray to a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ, in Manila, on Thursday.
Devotees join the festival hoping to touch a centuries-old icon of Jesus Christ, called the Black Nazarene, which is believed to have miraculous powers.
At least 2.2 million devotees followed the more than 6-kilometre procession, which commemorates the transfer of the statute from Luneta Park to the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo district, police and local officials said. Another 192,000 were waiting inside and near the Quiapo church. The procession was expected to take at least 15 hours, organisers said. Last year, the statue reached the church after 21 hours.
The statue is believed to have been brought from Mexico to Manila in 1606 by Spanish missionaries. The ship that carried it caught fire, but the charred statue survived and was named the Black Nazarene.
More than 80 per cent of the Philippines’ estimated 100 million population is Roman Catholic. (AFP)
Devotees join the festival hoping to touch a centuries-old icon of Jesus Christ, called the Black Nazarene, which is believed to have miraculous powers.
At least 2.2 million devotees followed the more than 6-kilometre procession, which commemorates the transfer of the statute from Luneta Park to the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo district, police and local officials said. Another 192,000 were waiting inside and near the Quiapo church. The procession was expected to take at least 15 hours, organisers said. Last year, the statue reached the church after 21 hours.
The statue is believed to have been brought from Mexico to Manila in 1606 by Spanish missionaries. The ship that carried it caught fire, but the charred statue survived and was named the Black Nazarene.
More than 80 per cent of the Philippines’ estimated 100 million population is Roman Catholic. (AFP)
