{"id":2923,"date":"2025-11-21T18:20:26","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T18:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/?p=2923"},"modified":"2025-11-21T18:20:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T18:20:26","slug":"in-tunisia-a-church-procession-blends-faith-nostalgia-and-migration-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/?p=2923","title":{"rendered":"In Tunisia, a church procession blends faith, nostalgia and migration | Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Tunis, Tunisia \u2013<\/strong> Night had just about fallen in Halq al-Wadi, also known as La Goulette, a balmy coastal suburb of Tunis, when the Virgin Mary emerged from the local church, Saint-Augustin and Saint Fidele, into a packed square.<\/p>\n

Carried on the shoulders of a dozen churchgoers, the statue of the Virgin was greeted with cheers, ululations and a passionately waved Tunisian flag.<\/p>\n

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Hundreds of people \u2013 Tunisians, Europeans, and sub-Saharan Africans \u2013 had gathered for the annual procession of Our Lady of Trapani.<\/p>\n

Many of those participating in the procession, and the Catholic Mass that came beforehand, were from sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the Holy Virgin who has brought us all here today,\u201d Isaac Lusafu, originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, told Al Jazeera. \u201cToday the Virgin Mary has united us all\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a large, packed square just beyond the church gates, the statue moved in a circle as people prayed and sang hymns. It was all under the watchful eye of a mural of Claudia Cardinale, the renowned Italian actress born in La Goulette, a reminder of the distant past when the district was home to thousands of Europeans.<\/p>\n

\"A
People carry the shrine of the Virgin Mary, as a mural depicting Italian actress Claudia Cardinale overlooks the crowd [Joseph Tulloch\/Al Jazeera]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A melting pot<\/h2>\n

The Catholic feast of Our Lady of Trapani was brought to La Goulette in the late 1800s by Sicilian immigrants, in the days when the port town was a hub for poor southern European fishermen in search of a better life.<\/p>\n

Immigration to Tunisia from Sicily peaked in the early 20th century. Nearly all of the fishermen, along with their families and descendants, have now returned to European shores, but the statue of the Virgin remained \u2013 and, every year on August 15, it is carried in procession out of the church.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a unique event,\u201d Hatem Bourial, a Tunisian journalist and radio presenter, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

He went on to describe how, in the procession\u2019s heyday in the early 20th century, native Tunisians, Muslims and Jews alike, would join Tunisian-Sicilian Catholics in carrying the statue of the Virgin Mary from the church down to the sea.<\/p>\n

There, participants would ask Mary to bless the fishermen\u2019s boats. Many residents would shout \u201cLong live the Virgin of Trapani!\u201d, Bourial said, while others threw their chechia, a traditional red cap worn in the Maghreb, in the air.<\/p>\n

As well as its religious significance \u2013 for Catholics, August 15 marks the day that Mary was taken up into heaven \u2013 the feast also coincides with the Italian mid-August holiday of Ferragosto, which traditionally signals the high point of the summer.<\/p>\n

Silvia Finzi, born in Tunis in the 1950s to Italian parents, described how, after the statue had been brought down to the sea, many of La Goulette\u2019s residents would declare that the worst of the punishingly hot Tunisian summer was over.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce the Virgin had been taken down to the water, it was as if the sea had changed\u201d, Finzi, a professor of Italian at the University of Tunis, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople would say \u2018the sea has changed, the summer\u2019s over\u2019, and you wouldn\u2019t need to go swimming to cool down any more\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Canal
The canal port of La Goulette, in the late 19th century [Courtesy of Dialoghi Mediterranei]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

European exodus<\/h2>\n

The first European immigrants began to arrive in La Goulette in the early 19th century. Their numbers rapidly increased after 1881, when Tunisia became a French protectorate. At its height in the early 1900s, the number of Italian immigrants \u2013 who were largely Sicilians \u2013 across the whole of Tunisia is estimated to have been more than 100,000.<\/p>\n

In the decade after 1956, when Tunisia gained its independence from France, the vast majority of its European residents left the country, as the new government pivoted towards nationalism.<\/p>\n

In 1964, the Vatican signed an agreement with Tunisia, transferring control of the majority of the country\u2019s churches \u2013 now largely empty \u2013 to the government for use as public buildings. The agreement also put an end to all public Christian celebrations, including the procession in La Goulette.<\/p>\n

For more than half a century, August 15 was marked only with a Mass inside the church building, and the statue of Our Lady of Trapani remained immobile in its niche. The date remained important for La Goulette\u2019s much-reduced Catholic population, but it largely ceased to be an important event for the wider community.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Catholic Church of Saint Augustin and Saint Fidele [Joseph Tulloch\/Al Jazeera]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nostalgia<\/h2>\n

In 2017, the Catholic Church received permission to restart the procession, initially just inside the church compound. This year, when Al Jazeera visited, the procession left the church property but only travelled as far as the square outside.<\/p>\n

Many attendees were young Tunisian Muslims, with little connection to La Goulette\u2019s historic Sicilian population.<\/p>\n

A major reason for this is undoubtedly the high status accorded to the Virgin Mary in Islam \u2013 an entire chapter of the Quran is dedicated to her.<\/p>\n

Other participants seemed to be drawn by a feeling of nostalgia for La Goulette\u2019s multiethnic, multireligious past.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the procession\u201d, Rania, 26, told Al Jazeera. \u201cLots of people have forgotten about it now, but European immigration is such an important part of Tunisia\u2019s history\u201d.<\/p>\n

Rania, a student, told Al Jazeera of her love for the 1996 film, Un ete a La Goulette (A Summer in La Goulette).<\/p>\n

Featuring dialogue in three languages, and evocative shots of sunlit courtyards and shimmering beaches, the film is an ode to La Goulette\u2019s past.<\/p>\n

Directed by the renowned Tunisian filmmaker Ferid Boughedir, it follows the lives of three teenage girls \u2013 Gigi, a Sicilian, Meriem, a Muslim, and Tina, a Jew \u2013 over the course of a summer in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

The film ends, however, on a bleak note, with the outbreak of the 1967 War between Israel and several Arab states, and the subsequent departure of almost all of Tunisia\u2019s remaining Jewish and European residents.<\/p>\n

\"Procession
The procession of Our Lady of Trapani in La Goulette in the 1950s [Courtesy of Dialoghi Mediterranei]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

New migrations<\/h2>\n

As Tunisia\u2019s European population declined, the country has seen an influx of new migrant communities from sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n

The majority of these new migrants, who number in the tens of thousands, hail from Francophone West Africa. Many come to Tunisia in search of work; others hope to find passage across the Mediterranean to Europe.<\/p>\n

Many of the sub-Saharan migrants \u2013 who face widespread discrimination in Tunisia \u2013 are Christian, and as a result, they now make up the vast majority of Tunisia\u2019s churchgoing population.<\/p>\n

This fact is reflected in a mural in the church in La Goulette, inspired by the feast of Our Lady of Trapani. Painted in 2017, it depicts the Virgin Mary sheltering a group of people \u2013 Tunisians, Sicilians and sub-Saharan Africans \u2013 under her mantle.<\/p>\n

The air around the Virgin in the mural is full of passports. The church\u2019s priest, Father Narcisse, who hails from Chad, told Al Jazeera that these represent the documents that immigrants throw into the sea while making the journey from North Africa to Europe in the hope of evading deportation.<\/p>\n

The mural highlights the fact that the Madonna of Trapani, once considered the protector of Sicilian fishermen, is today called upon by immigrants of far more varied backgrounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis celebration, in its original form, marked the deep bonds between the two shores of the Mediterranean,\u201d Archbishop of Tunis Nicolas Lhernould told Al Jazeera. \u201cToday, it brings together a more diverse group \u2013 Tunisians, Africans, Europeans; locals, migrants, and tourists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMary herself was a migrant,\u201d Archbishop Lhernould said, referring to the New Testament story which narrates Mary\u2019s flight, together with the child Jesus and her husband Joseph, from Palestine to Egypt.<\/p>\n

From a Christian perspective, he suggested, \u201cwe are all migrants, just passing through, citizens of a kingdom which is not of this world\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"A
A mural of the Virgin Mary in the Saint Augustin and Saint Fidele church sheltering a group of people \u2013 Tunisians, Sicilians, and sub-Saharan Africans \u2013 under her mantle. The air around the Virgin in the mural is full of passports [Joseph Tulloch\/Al Jazeera]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The spirit of La Goulette<\/h2>\n

La Goulette was once home to \u2018Little Sicily\u2019, an area characterised by its clusters of Italian-style apartment buildings. The vast majority of these structures \u2013 modest buildings built by the newly-arrived fishermen \u2013 have been torn down and replaced, and little more than the church remains to testify to the area\u2019s once significant Sicilian presence.<\/p>\n

As of 2019, there were only 800 Italians descended from the original immigrant community left in the whole of Tunisia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so few of us left\u201d, said Rita Strazzera, who was born in Tunis to Sicilian parents. The Tunisian-Sicilian community meets very rarely, she explained, with some members coming together for the celebration on the 15th August, and holding occasional meetings in a small bookshop opposite the church.<\/p>\n

Still, the spirit of Little Sicily has not entirely vanished. Traces of the old La Goulette linger \u2013 in memory, in film, and, Strazzera told Al Jazeera, in other, more surprising ways as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery year, on All Saints\u2019 Day, I go to the graveyard\u201d, said Strazzera, referring to the annual celebration when Catholics remember their deceased loved ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there are Tunisians there, Muslims, people who maybe had a Sicilian parent, or a Sicilian grandparent, and have come to visit their graves, because they know it\u2019s what Catholics do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been lots of mixed marriages\u201d, Strazzera added, \u201cand so, every year, there are more of them visiting the graves. When I see them, it\u2019s like a reminder that Little Sicily is still with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sicilian
Sicilian peasants in Tunisia in 1906 [Courtesy of Dialoghi Mediterranei]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n


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