Carroll Gardens Good Friday Procession In Photos

For decades, members of the Maria SS Addolorata congregation of the Parish of Sacred Hearts & St. Stephen (Summit & Hicks Streets), have commemorated Good Friday with a two-hour procession through the streets of Carroll Gardens.

Good Friday is the day in which Christians believe Jesus was “Crucified for the sins of Humanity.” The Good Friday Procession, which originated in small Italian towns, marks the day with symbolic statues of Jesus and Mary carried by devotees in a re-enactment of Jesus’ journey to his tomb.

The Maria SS Addolorata congregation was established in 1948, by immigrants from the town of Mola di Bari in southern Italy. To continue this tradition in their new home, the congregation commissioned a replica of a statue of their hometown patroness, Our Lady of Sorrows, which was created in Mola and shipped to Brooklyn.

The statue is carried through the streets of Carroll Gardens by the congregation twice a year, on Good Friday and the Feast of Addolorata (the second Sunday in September).

On Friday, dozens of members of the congregation dressed in black ushered the statue of Mary, a large crucifix, and a statue of Jesus in a glass casket, through the streets of Carroll Gardens accompanied by a funeral band and a group of women singing hymns and reciting the rosary in Italian. The procession wound through the neighborhood, concluding back at the church with a service and prayer.

It was quite a ceremony to behold—a reverent demonstration of faith, devotion, and tradition.