Feast of Saint Agatha (Catania)
5 February 2026 — White robes and warm candles: Catania quietly honours its saint.
Every February the Sicilian city of Catania honours its patron saint, Agatha. According to tradition, she was a young Christian woman from Catania who suffered for her faith in the 3rd century, around 251. The festival runs from 3 to 5 February, and 5 February is her feast day. Thousands of devotees, dressed in white robes and black caps, accompany the silver bust-reliquary holding her relics, mounted on a silver carriage (the fercolo) that devotees pull through the streets with long ropes. The procession carries on through the night and into the early hours of the next day. Worshippers carry large candles known as cerei, and the city is filled with prayer and song. The feast falls on a fixed date in the Christian calendar and is not tied to the phases of the Moon. Above the city rises Mount Etna, which gives the scene its unique character. The festival is listed in the Register of Intangible Heritage of Sicily.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver procession of small star-point figures in long robes, each carrying a tall glowing candle drawn as a thin line of light, drifting across the sky like a moving constellation
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