Every year, on the evening of Holy Thursday, the streets of Cagliari are filled with a dense, almost suspended silence. It is that of the procession of Sant'Efisio for the traditional “tour of the Seven Churches”, a rite that blends faith, memory and mystery, rooted in the heart of the city for more than two centuries.
Tomorrow at 8.30pm, the simulacrum of the Warrior Martyr will leave the church of Stampace, accompanied by the Archconfraternity of the Gonfalone .
Dressed in mourning – with a collar, cuffs and black feathers on his helmet – Sant'Efisio will pass through the alleys of the centre of Cagliari, stopping in seven symbolic churches, on a journey of meditation and thanksgiving.
The origin of this rite is lost in time and is intertwined with legend . An 18th century poem in Logudorese Sardinian tells that the Saint appeared to a man determined to poison the holy water stoups of the city churches, convincing him to give up and confess the crime. Another version, reported by the canon Giovanni Spano, speaks instead of a revealing dream had by the viceroy Filippo Guglielmo Pallavicino delle Frabose: Saint Efisio warned him of a plot to poison the wells of the Castello district.
Whether it is legend or historical memory, since then Cagliari renews its vow to the Saint every year . A moment in which faith and tradition merge without rhetoric. And so the “tour of the Seven Churches” is renewed every year as if it were the first time.