St. Sebastiano the cult and the feast to Palazzolo Acreide

Feast St.Sebastiano Palazzolo Acreide

... It needs to say that every thing did him in this country you had to have done twice and often the one against the other, as if there were two souls; the one harvest around the old church of S.Paolo in the heart of the valley, the more district' ancient and impoverished where the families baroniali and the farmers lived above all; and the other on the top of the mountain, picked around the church of St. Sebastiano in the new district where you had assembled the middle class of the employees, merchants professionals, where the course, the cafes, the town hall and the theater were. You fought for every thing. For example the patron was St. Paolo,nero, calvo,terribile, dressed of black, the sword baleante that had cut one hundred and a heads of Christians, and up there' they proclaimed another patron, St. Sebastiano naturally, candied, very beautiful, intellectual, tied up to a sapling and pierced through by silver arrows, the graduates' gentleman, of the artisans and of the students...
Giuseppe Fava
(journalist-writer)

In the province of Syracuse, the devotion for St. Sebastian choosed from the church like "depulsor pestis" and defender of faith is previous to the 1414, year in which a miraculous Simulacrum of the saint landed at Melilli. From that year the cult for St. Sebastian was diffused in an extraordinary way in the iblea area and it further consolidated all over Sicily.

In Palazzolo the great devotion for this saint is ancient, testimonial to this is the Chapel to Him dedicated nearby the ancient church of Our Lady of the Annunciation existing since the XV century. The feast, fixed for the recurrence of the 20 Jannuary, in palazzolo it' s repeated on the 10 August, with the same great devotion but with a frame of pubblic, an exceptional spectacularity and folclore. The summer feast took place that of Our lady of Odigitria that was chosen for the good season and because it coincided with the August fair and with the harvesting of the wheat. Such valid movites induced for the confirmation of the 10 Audust even for the external feast of St. Sebastian. Today the age-long traditions that distingiush the feast, new rites are added and new enterprises that gives it a greater prestige and a big fame even out of the local boundary. The feast lasts for ten days. The touching and most spectacular moments are alot. 

The lap of the gala and the unveiling of the saint the evening before the feast. 

Giorno 10 August, 10,30am, the blessing of the "cuddure" offered bread; 02.00pm. the thouching "Catena Umana" human chain along the steep street street of "Fiumegrande".08.30pm, the evening procession and the musical performace. Midnight.the musical pyrotecnic dispay. (...l'alloro ricorda il bosco di alloro sacro ad Adone dove san Sebastiano, legato nudo ad un albero, è bersaglio delle frecce dei feroci arcieri della Mauritania... - tratto da: Sebasiano Martire di Roma di L.Giubelli);



01,00pm, , suggesting "sciuta" (l'uscita) coming out of the relic and the saint carried on naked shoulders between the shooting of firecrackers and the dropping of thousands of 'nsareddi (strips of coloured paper 2mt long); to the sound of the band, the two similacrum are followed by barefooted women and by thousands of devouted people, While babies and small children come undressed and offered to the saint.

02.00pm. the thouching "Catena Umana" human chain along the steep street street of "Fiumegrande".
08.30pm, the evening procession and the musical performace. Midnight.the musical pyrotecnic dispay.


From the 7th August and for all the actave one may visit the serveral exhibitions organized for the feast and one may attend to a serial of celebrations to it associated.
17th August, 08.30pm, new procession of the relic and of the simulacrum of St. Sebastian, concluding with a pyrotecnic display and the veiling of the saint.