Next Friday will begin the acts of the Festivities of the Holy Cross and Moors and Christians of Abanilla, which will be held until May 7 and whose acts will be focused on the Patron Saint of the town. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the recovery of some celebrations that in 1973 gave rise to the first kábila and retinue and the Association of Moors and Christians Santa Cruz.
The program, which includes a wide repertoire of events with different parades and parades of kábilas and mesnadas, as well as the coronation of the Moorish and Christian queens 2023, was presented yesterday by the general director of the Institute of Tourism of the Region of Murcia (Itrem ), Juan Francisco Martínez, and the mayor of Abanilla, José Antonio Blasco.
The reading of the proclamation, which will take place this Friday and will feature the Spanish diplomat Inocencio Arias, will mark the beginning of the patron saint festivities. At the end, the newly crowned queens, Delfina Rivera Carracedo and Eugenia Ramírez Rocamora, will present the corresponding prizes for the 2022 parade. The most important dates on the program will be the traditional Moors and Christians parade (May 1) and the pilgrimage of the Holy Cross to the hermitage of Mahoya (May 3).
These festivities, declared of Regional Tourist Interest since 1986, have their origins in the time of the reconquest and the skirmishes between the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon to seize the Plaza de Abanilla. According to legend, the discovery took place in an orchard in Mahoya, next to a ditch, of the two splinters of wood in the shape of a cross, which were delivered to the priest of Abanilla. The priest placed that insignia on the high altar. Later, the cross disappeared from there and was later found by some orchards. Later, she would proclaim herself as the patron saint of Abanilla and the Mahoya hermitage would be erected.
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