highly constat literally the city of saints. and the people here do indeed celebrate a long tradition of christianity some of the rituals practiced here go back hundreds of years. on palm sunday the sunday before easter catholics from the central german town gather in precession to bear witness to the sufferings of christ. then at 15 then carry these larger

than life wooden figures through the town. bringing up some of the force bearer in our family from you write my great grandfather was the 1st then my grandfather and my father my father you know or does it highlight for us a highlight for the whole town. that. sense 1581 catholics have been staging this holy week procession and highly. it resembles a passion play each palm sunday they carry huge figures around the town center portraying the sufferings of christ. jesuits introduced the tradition as part of their strategy to subvert the attraction of the protestant reformation in the region. to put this on some askance put on the list the procession is really remarkable because it has survived told of his of history it was done in like he meant

secularization and superiors that the pope described as godless dictatorships. it's a very strong christian. in witnesses from a small region at the heart of germany in bushland. today the passion procession of highly constat is one of the largest in the country. this will represent the mount of olives where jesus prayed the night before his crucifixion here in central europe olive trees are a rare commodity. so the builders make do with the french as a few trees. we traditionally use huge trees because there's lots of them growing around here they are also very decorative very nice and green with. their mother for. the huge tree branches that represent all of branches from the holy mountain are a popular keepsake. do you were everyone wants

to take one home and it's an old tradition to which the palm sunday branch is behind the crucifix in your sitting room they stay there all year this sometimes leads to a regular free for all with people fighting over the last branches so we make sure to put lots of them on our display day when we dismantle everything they'll be none left. the figures are stored in the attic of the old jesuit college the piano tab depicting the virgin mary holding the body of her dead son was replaced 120 years ago. some of the other figures date back to the 16th century they are carefully preserved and have been spared the ravages of time. most of my macbook on the 1st time i took part in the early 1980 s. they had predicted rain and it rained so hard when we carrying the figures we can't really take a step to the side so we just marched straight through all the puddles got so wet

you could hear our shoes squelching what a mess that's. been there is retiring this year his sunday shard is set to take over his role in the procession that's the tradition here but 1st he needs a top hat off to do them are. they do you happen to have a spare top hat for our son ben. also the b.o.r. to look through what we've got not found 3 because. all platform bearers wear their sunday best black suits and top hats the 1st. this is a top hat my grandfather used to wear. over par seen a few downpours isn't it boys it's too big for me it keeps slipping around on my head oh this is too big line it with newspaper. and never move it doesn't fit richard we have to find another one. not on.

the thought of i believe it belonged to my wife's grandfather. you know it's too small for me but i think it should fit richard they're going to think you know which of us will issue or in this case hat fit. this is where the procession is set to start on sunday bowden knows the way he will be in the front row carrying the 1st figure your good invest will head up that way towards the 1st intersection. and then turn right towards vilhelm stars and. through. it's the same route the procession has followed for centuries one and a half kilometers through the streets of hard against that. and here i think this is bill himself will be coming from up here in procession and head this way across getting his trouser want to linden l.a. . and then back to our starting point where the closing service takes place.

another palm sunday tradition and highly constat of the little boxes that held the shutter paints. business so often that it's our very old custom here in that we always give the little boxes off to the palm sunday for session will be a pity if that custom disappeared from. the boxes our beloved souvenirs from highly constat next to the one she painted herself to also keeps many historical examples in her museum dish them for me though and these are wanted between 1008 in 1910 don't get very simple. this autumn was covered with thinned paint and you know these symbolize palm fronds until box was decorated with a bouquet of flowers and a little saying. 40 years ago she brought this half forgotten tradition back to life. do you think young men would resent responses to this week.

when the girls approval that way and parents would give them to their children in that case there were always sweet sayings on the box like god bless you wish them. though it's so lovely here you get. the museum has visitors year round the motif of the easter lamb is a best seller held a shot of 1st painted a box like this for the late cardinal meisner archbishop of cologne. cut a cardinal gave it to somebody else. it's a moment irish held at 1st i thought he didn't like it and i realized you wouldn't make a president of something you didn't like yourself one time come it does. and then he told me he'd given it to his best friend cardinal ratzinger. you don't say. yes and then cardinal minds now received

a new one requirement since then i've often painted the pascal lembit him up there's no record of whether cardinal ratzinger took the box with him when he moved into the palace of the vatican as pope benedict the 16th either way held a shutter is quite pleased. to see the still remain just as the good shepherd and the good shepherd looks after his training of people the image. and the lamb is both the sequestration lamb the victorious lamb. in recent years a novelty has crept in among the boxes. how did the luther rose find its way to this very catholic town. survived holes and cindy if english and consumed thousands of lutheran christians will formally invited to a palm sunday procession before that they don't really ever been spectators. since then they join in so i thought that much to be a special thanks for the lutherans to close and that's why i had to sign this box

and this we have a few little wish that it. meanwhile at the shrillness home we've gathered a few top hats let's see which of them fits you us 20 year old bill now wants to follow in his father's footsteps and assume the family's office as one of the ceremonial platform bearers suck up. time to find out if one of the hats they borrowed actually fits. this one's a bit too small isn't it. but for some 32 years carried the last figure in the perception the holy step of her formal dress has always been obligatory. finally the 4th that they try fits but it is father's will have to share it is once the entire. just as they'll share the route father paul's plans to take over for his son on the 2nd leg of the procession . but he is i think you'll manage until

girls are going to start a. downhill ham's trouser and i'll carry it the rest of the way you'll see you'll be flagging by bad. country can you get in for the moment the youngster seems confident enough to point to you from someone some standing next to the holy sepulture or leaving the house to join the procession i think it will feel a little special i imagine what it must be like to walk through town while people point instead whisper to each other in reverence oh look one of the barriers of the disney air force the course right now you can tell when you're being stared at. it dressed in his finest sun or a shard is ready to carry on the family legacy. and. me feel proud it's a fine thing and i think it's wonderful that you're doing this. his father is brimming with pride. as we look at you've grown up. the whole

precession is organized by families and highly can start like the spinners but there's one exception to the rule since 1943 men from the neighboring village of best housing have been responsible for the 4 metre high cross. best 1000 lies just 5 kilometers east of haile constat. for decades your highness trialing and after him his son angle that have been crossed bearers. just imagine helps carry it across and mr filmer did to those who served for us it's an honor to be part of the procession. the involvement of best housing was a result of the 2nd world war. many residents of highly can start were at the front and there weren't enough strong men left to carry the figures. so the dean wrote

a letter to the parish priest at best house and asking for support the men from vest house and volunteered to carry the cross. years later when the men of highly can start wanted to take it back the volunteers were reluctant to hand it over. to new york. we had a meeting and discussed the situation and we decided we're not going to relinquish the honor we received. the letter if we were good enough during the war we were good enough afterwards. to do that they. told us that the men of best house and what dead against it and i'm glad they were . 12 men in our families we all agreed we should carry on bearing the cross instead of giving it back. to. their determination paid off that trialing took over the cross from his father in

1906. said he'd been carrying the cross for 40 years he asked if i wanted to take it over of course i did you know. i stayed close out kept an eye on. that i was carrying it the right way it's not easy and fast you have to fall in line with the other bearers and take direction from the men who've been doing it for years. it's tricky when you're standing at the back trying to balance it out or . grow the cross lanes to one side the people on that side have to push against it and you push against them this is and sometimes it's not the weight of the cross that's the hard part is the guy next to you pushing the wrong direction award we never dropped it into. the procession was introduced by jesuits who were sent to the area over 4 centuries ago by the archbishop of mines ruler of the territory. these jesuits got creative as they went about spearheading the counter-reformation

. media i will be your desire they took what we would call a multimedia approach they were the best instruments at the disposal of the catholic church and the passion persuasion was part of their program they turned it into a mass spec tickle talking to mom. and it was to be a spectacle on good friday the day christ was crucified. but the locals objected to the proposed to date. that is a good friday is a holy day of obligation for catholics we eat one meal all day and we're not allowed meet so they couldn't sell sausages and the fasting rules for the many other things of the day isn't suitable for a big public spectacle because it commemorates the sufferings of christ so the procession happens on palm sunday instead of them times and definitely since the date was changed to palm sunday and 734 the procession has been enormously popular

and to keep it that way the local people were prepared to defend their profession by all means at their disposal. once the nazis forbade schoolchildren to accompany the holy sepak or but 8 young boys defied the order. because both describe this as the greatest disappointment of his life and caused by the very people who were supposed to play a key role in constructing the 1000 year reich. people to defy nazi ideology the boys were sent to a hitler youth prison camp in baghdad where they suffered physical violence and were interrogated a couple. books. for him away you could view this as a form of resistance in the 3rd reich as the utah position. and attempts to suppress the parade didn't stop there after the end of the war this was soviet occupied territory former provost paul you c'mon tells an anecdote about

his predecessor in 1946 when he feared the procession would be banned he turned to the soviet commander. the commander had been a theater director in russia. so of course he was interested in drama. when the provost knew this when he played on the man simply describing the procession as a holy play. he said it was no demonstration it was a melodrama if you would many participants he was asked 6000. commander was very impressed and how many acts here. if not accurate scenes was the answer. for. the day after the procession the man was summoned by the soviet commander. with his knowledge of the world the last thing the provost wanted before he left was

a hearty breakfast they knew these appointments could take time and when he wasn't sure whether he was going to be praised or reprimanded. he was praised. and the incident became part of highly constat history. afterwards the east german communists never dared to ban the procession. but they did punish those who collaborated. especially the bearers. of the margin between many other people who held important positions had to decide for themselves whether it was worth taking part in the procession or not especially in the final years when east germany was particularly weak and pressure in the factories and collectives increased it with leave christians couldn't even get a masters or to forget anymore. in those communist years

taking part in the procession was a bold declaration of one's faith. to part for the 1st time in the mid 1980 s. despite the political repercussions he would face. it demonstrated that i was committed to my faith that i hadn't bought into socialism. procession let me show that quite openly. but that meant that i wouldn't be allowed to study. or i'd wanted to become a forest ranger but all of a sudden i was caught off. i was pushed out of the system or and. all this. in spite of the discrimination they suffered this small region remained a bastion of faith. 80 percent of the population is catholic. or doesn't but whether in the 3rd reich or later on the communism was as diverse as always was

an expression of resistance you know standing for this was their way of telling the regime that it hadn't succeeded in getting the whole region to accept the new ideology they didn't need anybody else's worldview they had their own given the choice between marx and god they chose god for god. highly constat on the sunday before easter the day of the passion procession its 12 noon how the shutter is arranging the palm sunday boxes on her table. or to spend sunday as palm sunday is an important day for this region and even people from far away know about it many will come through the weather is perfect the sun is shining so that means even more than joining the given the whole is not nearly that often very. 1230 which had still not dresses for the procession today he will soon honorary office and every sense of the word to march in the procession as one of the bearers of the holy sepak or is a high accolade and high like and shot. a shot will inherit the office from his

father as custom dictates. today he will become part of a 400 year old tradition. it's an emotional occasion. for the 50 man and formal dress will be the heroes of the day the super rich or do you want to begin fung affairs i'll carry from the start it's ok here's how i share the load richard of all carry the holy sepak are down villains to. then i'll take over and go to guns taza and little knowledge others done not. 1 o'clock thousands of pilgrims and tourists crowd into the town. either that's all running according to plan no change is the same as. every year. the bears from best house and take up their positions at the cross it's not the

heaviest load but it's the hardest to carry. the holy step occurs decorated with flowers the spill ners father and son are starting to feel the tension. i don't have this driver so i hope i don't step on your feet but if you do after the 3rd time you have to polish my shoes afterwards. how this shot has painted boxes are attracting potential customers. a colorful memento of a very special occasion for the good of our thoughts. on the stroke of 2 the procession starts with him and prayers the faithful march through highly constat. only after the 1st figures have covered a 3rd of the route is it time for ryszard to start. the holy step occur is the final scene. and weighing $320.00 kilos it's the heaviest.

yeah i saw the man with saves all kinds and they stayed on main street removing all the guns i don't know cushioning the old hymns the tom daschle son in church anymore and oh and if you look at the people who will see that all variant who has souls and that everybody is moving toward. when i say that for sections you don't have to as most impetus to want to fight back the tears with sophisticated food. the vast 1000 men are proud to be carrying the cross. and albert drying has taken his father's place. with its uplifting when you see that you're part of this whole community. 8000 people have joined the

procession today. another 4000 lined the streets. for the unretouched build their shoulders on the shoulders of 11 other men. the holy sepak are a heavy burden. his father is waiting to take over but young restart isn't ready to quit yet. 8 tenths of a kilometer no he's not handing over this is just a short pause. and 1.2 kilometers hasn't he had enough. everything he wants to finish now there won't be any hand over the war god with all my vote i knew he wouldn't give up i knew it all along he told me he wanted to see israel's. fault. the passion procession is punishing for the bears but it's

a burden they carry with pride across 1500 meters home at some point i didn't want to hand over i told myself i had to finish i think he's even happier about it than i am. well richard. you know it's like selling out such as this really i would you know take over you wouldn't exact this list of names when i wanted to finish 1st so you did this now you are worthy of the authors . richard wants to take over permanently if not handed over to me. all i got on the. i had off. to. the palm sunday procession is more than a spectacle or a custom. for the people of haile constat it's a declaration of their faith. it was a still vavi amount of precision is always the same that's the spirit of tradition

it expresses a certain continuity when you see that christianity is still alive here there is still catholics here with the churches and not empty there are people who want to demonstrate their faith that is by the airport we are or by the fact that we've been chosen. to carry the figures through the top. and presenting them to the people. it all they believe the procession will survive another 400 yes i'm certain of it just different george so. what.

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