The annual pilgrimage with the statue of Jesus Christ the Redeemer to the cathedral in Victoria will take place today. The pilgrimage will leave St Augustine church after the celebration of mass by cathedral archpriest Joseph Sultana at 6pm.

The statue of the Redeemer was one of five depicting the sorrowful mysteries commissioned by the Sodality of the Holy Crucifix, known as Tal-Agonija, founded at the old Matrice church (the present cathedral) on Good Friday of April 7, 1651. The sodality was founded with the intention that members pray for each other during the agony of death.

In the early 1700, each statue was taken in pilgrimage along the streets of the Ċittadella during the five Fridays of Lent. The papier-mâché statues were dressed in velvet clothes.

According to sodality members’ hearsay, passed from one generation to another, the statues were made in Gozo by a Sicilian fugitive. Gozitan historian, Fr Joseph Bezzina, has discovered that this might be a true story.

In fact, according to biographers, in the first decade of 1700, Giuseppe Serpotta (b.1653-1719), a well-known master of stucco from Palermo, disappeared mysteriously. It might be possible that Serpotta was that same fugitive artist who executed these statues, which are first recorded at the Matrice before 1715. Three hundred years later, four of the five statues are still an attraction at the Gozo Cathedral during Holy Week.

At the end of today’s pilgrimage, priests will be available to hear confessions.