All images © Kevin Moloney


Two young altar boys fill a 200-year-old incensor for a reenactment of the washing of the apostles’ feet by Jesus on Holy Thursday in the Brazilian city of Ouro Prêto. The Holy Week celebrations in the city form a nightly religious theater for the faithful.



A young angel awaits her turn to parade through the streets with hundreds of citizens dressed as biblical figures during one of Holy Week’s many processions in Ouro Prêto.



Wearing huge feather wings, three young angels preside over theatrical reenactments of the Last Supper and Passion of Jesus staged annually by several of the town’s churches. Itself an historical landmark, the town of 60,000 boasts 13 huge 18th-century churches.



Towering crosses — one hung with an antique statue of Jesus — stand over a crowd in front of Ouro Prêto’s historic Church of St. Francis of Assisi. A burial procession followed sermons, music and the reenactment of the removal of Jesus from the cross on Good Friday.



Members of the Third Order of St. Francis, a Catholic lay group founded in Europe centuries ago, parade through the streets of Ouro Prêto with Our Lady of Sorrows, a representation of St. Mary suffering from the crucifixion of her son, during the funeral procession of Jesus held on Good Friday.


All images © Kevin Moloney

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