The seven Passion statues at the Gozo Cathedral have new platforms (bradelli) – a project that took off in 2016.

The platforms, supporting the statues and its pedestals, were designed by Manwel Grech and executed by Zammit Woodworks in African walnut timber, mainly used in cabinet making.

A variation of colours of the timber were applied, creating a contrast between the plinth, the pilasters, the frame and the panels of the pedestals. The plinths were paid by a benefactor.

The Gozo Cathedral commemorates the Good Friday procession on Sunday, April 10, at 6pm.

Devotion to the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ at the Gozo Cathedral knows its origin to the Sodality of the Agony or the Holy Crucifix founded at the Matrice (the cathedral), on  April 7, 1651.

The sodality had its seat within the chapel of the Holy Crucifix, which instead of an altarpiece had a large wooden crucifix in a recess flanked by two gilded papier mâché statues of the Sorrowful Virgin Mary and St John Apostle and Evangelist.

In early 1700, the sodality commissioned four other statues depicting the stations of the Passion of Christ – Christ at the Gethsemane, the scourging at the pillar, the crowning with thorns and the fall under the cross.

The papier-mâché statues are dressed in velvet clothes.

During the Lenten period, on each Friday a statue used to be taken out of the cathedral in procession around the Citadel and then placed in the cathedral for public veneration.

As from 1876, the Friday processions were held outside the Citadel around the streets of Rabat.