The Procession of the Passion held in Tortosa, more commonly known as the Palm Sunday Procession due to the date on which it is held, is certainly the most spectacular event of the Easter Week celebrations in the capital of the county of Baix Ebre, drawing the biggest crowds of the festivities. It should be noted how unique this procession is, representing in full the Passion and death of Christ on an unusual date, Palm Sunday. It is organized by the Agupació de Confraries de Setmana Santa (Association of the Holy Week Confraternities). If we want to trace the origins of the modern-day Procession of the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ held on Palm Sunday in Tortosa, we can specify that it started in 1806. According to the records of the Confraria de la Mare de Déu dels Dolors (The confraternity of Our Lady of Sorrows), that was the year in which it was decided to combine the procession of Our Lady of Sorrows with another procession, dating further back, organized by the guilds on Easter Thursday, but which no longer took place at the time.
Due to the lack of documentary evidence, as all records were destroyed in 1936, we can only turn to the reports that Ramon Vergés (1909) gives us for more information.
Manuel Beguer (1953) talks of the procession's dual origin. Firstly, the Procession of Penitents, organized by the Congregació de la Puríssima Sang (Congregation of the Immaculate Blood), would gradually expand to include guild organizations from the 16th century onwards. Meanwhile, in a more resounding and revitalizing way, from the 18th Century onwards, the Congregació dels Dolors (Congregation of the Sorrows) organized an event related to its devotion, as was the case with the majority of towns and cities.
One aspect that seems clear is that it was at the start of the 19th Century that the procession attained a level of excellence and renown that made it unique. It was at this point that the procession became a significant popular expression of faith, more or less structured in the same way as it is today. The symbolic facet of the procession is noteworthy, having integrated a set of deeply-rooted traditions in Tortosa.
Based on the scarce data that we have, we can state that the procession has always been of a spectacular nature and has always had a conscious interest in attracting visitors. Over the course of its existence, the Palm Sunday Procession has alternated between times of evident decline and grandeur. A municipal agreement in 1859 stipulated that a group of councillors should be assigned to the procession: “With the aim of ensuring that, this year, the Procession that is usually held on Palm Sunday is as brilliant as possible, in order to ensure that, despite the decline in this procession, people from outside of the city continue to attend the performance, which recreates the Mysteries of the Passion and Death of the Redeemer of the world..."
As a result of this official drive, there was a qualitative improvement in terms of the procession statues, which were now more spectacular and comprised of life-sized figures. This fact meant that the procession statues, which had previously been carried by hand, now had to be transported on large, heavy carts. The artists seem to have been Ramon Cerveto, Josep M. Beltri, Joan Baptista Gurrera and probably Macià Cuadrado. The final stage of construction started in the 1940s, when a complete renovation was undertaken to repair the destruction of 1936, at the same time as the precariousness and improvisation that prevailed after the end of the Civil War meant that the statue of Christ of the Immaculate Mother (dating back to the 17th Century) was included in the procession for the first time as the representation of the crucifixion. Within a couple of years, they would go on to build four more procession statues, the last being completed in 1958.
Acclaimed sculptors such as Innocenci Soriano Montagut, Enric Monjo, Carles Riba, and Claudi Rius, created these new sculptures, that are still carried in processions to this day.
