The Cult of St. Anthony in Lisbon and Viana do Castelo

Abstract

His baptismal name, Fernando de Bulhões (1195–1231), may say little to many people, but his religious name, St. Anthony, certainly says a lot, especially to the Portuguese. In fact, the cult of St. Anthony is indelibly inscribed in the religious landscape of Portugal, with particular intensity in Lisbon. This study, of an ethnographic and historical nature, is an innovative approach to this emblematic medieval figure, capable of so many miracles, veneration, revelry festivals, and processions among the people of Lisbon and the Portuguese in general, right up to the present day. The history of this Saint and his cult, as an expression of popular religiosity, will be discussed, favouring the dimensions of marriage and commerce in a comparative approach between two ethnographic contexts: Lisbon and Viana do Castelo. The notions of popular religion, syncretism, cult of the saints, and pilgrimage–procession will, therefore, be instrumental. The data collected and analysed are based on a mixed methodological triangulation of qualitative data complemented by quantitative data, using direct participant observations (ethnographic) and indirect observations (collected through semi-structured interviews and informal conversations), as well as documentary sources.

1. Introduction

Although discourses on secularisation are not recent (Feuerbach 2007; Nietzsche 1988), they have taken on a particular expression in the most diverse areas of modern Western societies. However, the affirmation of the disenchantment of the world (Weber 1997) is often countered by manifestations of diffuse religiosities, which, although often de-institutionalised or de-territorialised, are particularly significant in the social landscape, sometimes leading to the affirmation of the re-enchantment of the world.

The historical and anthropological literature is vast in its studies of saints and their devotional expressions in the most varied latitudes.

Despite the fall in institutional religious practice among many contemporary populations and the presumed overpowering secularisation process (Gauchet [1985] 1997; Taylor 2007), religion has always functioned as a strong local and national identity trait, surviving all sorts of social, economic, and political transformations. Therefore, the subject of traditional devotional practices has continued to deserve academic attention, as demonstrated by the study of the folk saints in Latin America (Graziano 2006), the many religious festivals in the Italian American community of Boston’s North End (Ferrajuolo 2012), the relationship between traditional religion and cultural heritage in Southern Europe (Isnart 2020), the Festival of Sant’Efisio, in Sardinia (Cocco and Bertran 2021), the research on re-sacralisation in Benaigua (Valencia, Spain) (Chanzà 2022), or on Saint Thérèse of Lisieux’s devotion and spirituality in Normandy (Drapac 2024).

Regarding St. Anthony, in particular, there are countless works—some classic and others contemporary—on his life and miraculous work (from the biography of St. Bonaventure, published in 1830, to the Liber Miraculorum published by the Bolandists in 1380) and on popular traditions, such as those associated with his cult (Mattos 1937), his blessings (R. A. Oliveira 2023), tales (Coelho 1879), legends, and miracles (Santos et al. 2023).

His baptismal name, Fernando de Bulhões (1195–1231), may not be popular or even familiar in general, but the religious name, St. Anthony, is certainly famous, particularly among the Portuguese people, as Portugal’s Patron Saint. In fact, the cult of St. Anthony is indelibly inscribed in Portugal’s religious landscape, with particular intensity in Lisbon, where he was born. Saint Vincent of Saragossa was the patron of the city’s Patriarchate, but he took a back seat and was surpassed by St. Anthony. Pope Pius XI declared St. Anthony patron of Portugal in 1934 (Carvalho 2012, 2018), alongside the Patron Saint Nossa Senhora da Conceição (Our Lady of Conception). In addition to the festivities, the institution of a national holiday on the day of Camões and St. Anthony as the Patron Saint of Portugal—dethroning St. Vincent—was added. In all churches in the city of Lisbon, the image of St. Anthony is present. During the 1755 earthquake, Santo António Church was partially destroyed, but its main image withstood the tragedy. In 1946, Pius XII proclaimed him “Doctor of the Universal Church” with the title of ‘Doctor Evangelicus’.

In the Alfacinha1 capital city, St. Anthony finds his greatest festive celebration in continuity, syncretised with vestiges of older ancestral cults linked to solstices, fertility, and weddings. In other parts of the country, veneration of the Saint appears in commercial spaces as a protector and promoter of business.

The relationship between commerce and religion is both ancient and current, as evidenced by the many different shrines that populate the Catholic religious landscape. However, while it is clear that sacred places are places of commerce, it is not so obvious that places of commerce have religious expressions. In fact, the bureaucratisation of the market suggests forms of rationality in which the religious dimension would be absent from the production/consumption equation. One of the images with the greatest expressive presence in such commercial spaces in many Portuguese regions is St. Anthony—one of the most devout saints in Catholicism and the central object of our study.

The main purposes of this text are (a) to present a summary of the historical description of the figure of St. Anthony; (b) to characterise the cult of St. Anthony within the framework of popular religion, particularly in Portugal; (c) to understand the devotional and practical use of St. Anthony as a strategy for festive celebrations and weddings, specifically in the capital city of Lisbon, where the Saint was born; and (d) to understand the motivations and meanings related to the presence of religious images, particularly of St. Anthony in commercial establishments in Viana do Castelo (northern Portugal). Finally, we will try to present and discuss the convergences between the two apparently divergent practices of devotion to the cult of St. Anthony in Viana do Castelo and Lisbon.

The study, of an ethnographic and historical nature, is an innovative approach to this emblematic medieval figure, capable of so many miracles, veneration, festivities, and processions among the people of Lisbon and the Portuguese in general, up to the present day. This text will look at the history of this Saint and his cult as an expression of popular religiosity, favouring the dimensions of festive celebration, marriage, and commerce, in a comparative approach between two ethnographic contexts in Portugal: Lisbon and Viana do Castelo. Historiography and the notion of popular religion will, therefore, be instrumental, complemented by syncretism, the cult of the saints, and pilgrimage–procession.

Although the devotion to St. Anthony is spread throughout most Portuguese communities, on Portuguese soil and in the diaspora, Lisbon, as the birth city of the Saint, “naturally” became the prime site of his traditional celebrations. Therefore, St. Anthony remains the most revered religious–historical figure and the predominant popular religious figure in the city’s main festivities in June until the present, and that is why this research began in Lisbon.

Contrary to the Portuguese capital, Viana do Castelo is a medium-sized city in the North of Portugal that has no major public events associated with the cult of St. Anthony. The city’s traditional festive calendar does not include large-scale festivals, processions, or other cultic manifestations that involve the whole community. These more expressive collective expressions are devoted to other saints. In Viana do Castelo, as in other towns, the cult of St. Anthony is discreet, so much so that it could be considered not very present or even absent if one believes in absolute secularisation. An exploratory study conducted in Viana for accessibility reasons by one of the authors of this research, however, has indicated that this small city also still presents a devotion to this Saint. While in Lisbon, manifestations of worship often have a grandeur and an institutional framework, in the case of Viana do Castelo, they are the result of more personal family choices and informal local sociability networks. Therefore, the choice to study the cult of St. Anthony in Viana was made to favour not only the referred contradictive comparison but also the motivational contrast of the believers, specifically the commercial potential of the Saint. Even though this motivation may be found in other places in Portugal, in Viana, an intensification of this devotional instrumentalisation was evident from the start of the exploratory study, as this article intends to show.

The data collection and analysis were based on a mixed methodological triangulation of qualitative data complemented by some quantitative data, using direct participant (ethnographic) and indirect observations (collected through semi-structured interviews and fieldwork), as well as documentary sources, which are fundamental for supporting ethnographic observation, but above all for historical analysis. Documental sources included mainly ethnographic and historical written materials more directly related to the research topic, but also printed press, propaganda brochures, and artistic elements, such as murals, iconographic images, and installations or statues of St. Anthony, photographs, and films, mostly found in the Lisbon Municipal Archives (Lisbon video library; Lisbon newspaper library; Lisbon Photographic Historic Archive), and in the National Library.

The data relating to Lisbon’s festive celebrations were collected during the fieldwork carried out by one of the authors between 2021 and 2024, with the aim of applying for this cultural manifestation to be included on the National Intangible Cultural Heritage Inventory list. The proposal was formalised in April 2024 and is awaiting approval by the Portuguese Ministry of Culture. The fieldwork included dozens of interviews with the 28 neighbourhood clubs or associations directors in the competition of the Lisbon Popular Marches, their respective march coordinators, choreographers, dance rehearsers, musicians, lyrics and music composers, costume designers and stylists, seamstresses, project designers, and craftsmen of the arches, figures, and accessories used by the marchers, their body characterisers and makeup artists, hairdressers, the shopkeeper where most materials for the costumes are obtained, the members of the jury of the contest, the team of the official organising entity of the Lisbon festivities (EGEAC2), and, naturally, the marchers themselves. These interviews and participant observations were carried out during the preparation stages of the competitions that occurred in 2021–2022 and 2022–2023. Additionally, interviews were conducted in 2022 with the persons in charge of the St. Anthony’s wedding ceremonies at St. Anthony’s Church and Lisbon Cathedral, as well as the person of the Lisbon municipality responsible for the organisation of all the wedding celebration details. In addition, interviews and direct observations were conducted with the organisers and the jury of the 2023 Thrones of St. Anthony’s contest.

The collection of ethnographic data from the city of Viana do Castelo was centred on fieldwork that began in 2020, was interrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and ended in 2024. Considering the size of the city and its high number of commercial establishments, the present work was limited to two parishes in the comercial area of the city: Santa Maria Maior and Monserrate. Fieldwork began with mapping all the commercial places with religious elements; then, all religious images were inventoried, studied, and categorised, whenever possible, considering their religious affiliation. Additionally, through semi-structured interviews, we sought to assess the link between local and personal religiosity of agents (owners and employees) in these commercial establishments and religious images, as well as to investigate the motivations behind the presence of these religious elements in these spaces and, finally, to describe the relationships between those agents and customers with these religious figures.

2. The History of St. Anthony in the World and in Portugal

Born in Lisbon, Fernando Martins de Bulhão completed his literary and theological training in Portugal. His studies at S. Vicente de Fora, at the monastery of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, and, above all, at Santa Cruz de Coimbra, underpinned a solid humanistic, scientific, and theological education, the relevance of which can be seen in the sermons he produced. His homilies show an interest in the symbolic and allegorical interpretation of the Bible and are, in the first instance, ‘a manual or guide for Franciscan preachers, who, not being masters, needed theological support for their popular sermons’ (Ganho 2007, p. 11). His name will be indelibly inscribed in the spiritual literature of the 13th century. In 1220, impressed by the arrival in Coimbra of the relics of the Franciscan friars martyred in Morocco, he asked to be admitted to the Franciscan order, adopting the name António, most probably due to the influence of the growing cult of St. Anthony in the country (S. A. Gomes 2000, p. 360). During a voyage, while returning from Morocco, a storm blew the ship he was travelling on to the Sicilian coast. Friar Antonio travelled around various Italian cities and proved to be an excellent preacher. He gained enough recognition for Francis of Assisi to appoint him Professor of Theology. He did this in Bologna, at the convent of Santa Maria di Pugliola. Shortly afterwards, he travelled to the south of France and taught at the Order’s convent school in Montpellier (Rema 2019, p. 35). His serene but incisive preaching was put at the service of combating the heresy of the Cathars and Albigensians. Exhausted and in poor health, he retired to Count Tiso’s house in Campo de Sampiero. He died on his way to Padua, where he was buried. He was canonised the year after his death by Pope Gregory IX. Antonio became one of the eleven saints who, with some certainty, can be described as ‘Portuguese’ (Rosa 2000, p. 336).

From the 13th century onward, devotion to St. Anthony was manifested in all social strata and with the involvement of the Church, especially the episcopate and the regular clergy (S. A. Gomes 2000, p. 375). The first altar erected in his honour in the country where he was born dates back to 1249 and is in the Church of Santa Cruz in Coimbra (Rema 2019, p. 88). In Portugal, veneration began to take hold in the 15th century at the instigation of the Franciscans and Dominicans, as well as the ecclesiastical authorities. It was at this time that a church was established in Lisbon, in the same place where the Portuguese thaumaturge had been born. In the case of the Viana do Castelo region, the determinations of the Archbishopric of Braga in the 15th and 16th centuries encouraged the veneration of images and the cult of saints. In the same way, it was during this period of the great European navigations that the cult of St. Anthony reached different continents, which certainly justifies the fact that Anthony’s devotion found expression in other Christian confessions and non-Christian religions, making him what Pope Leo XIII proclaimed in 1895: the Saint of the whole world. In addition to this ecumenical and inter-religious dimension, there have been cases of religious syncretism, particularly in Brazil, associated with Afro-Brazilian cults since the 18th century (Vainfas 2003).

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Antonian devotion was spread through periodicals and charitable initiatives. In the context of Catholic associations, the Society of Friends of St. Anthony and the Antonian Youth emerged, both in 1896. Anti-clericalism and republican legislation failed to irreparably affect these forms of popular devotion. Part of this militant persecution of the Catholic Church was the campaign to discredit the centenary of St. Anthony’s birth (1895). The rehabilitation of some of these devotions, associated with the return of the Franciscan Order to Portugal in 1926 and the revival of popular festivals in honour of St. Anthony in the 1930s, was part of the movement to revitalise Catholicism that emerged at the end of the 1920s. In 1926, the Church of St. Anthony in Lisbon reopened for religious services after an interregnum that had begun in 1911. Five years later, it was declared a national monument. Along with a vast hagiographic literature of a miraculous nature, during the Estado Novo period, there was a proliferation of publications in which the saints were presented as moral examples of the nation, stimulating patriotism. St. Anthony is a recurring figure in these editions, aimed at readers of different ages and academic backgrounds. Amongst others, he was part of the collection The Great Portuguese, published by the National Information Service (1948), and Portuguese Saints, by João Ameal (1957). In the middle of the 20th century, Pope Pius XII proclaimed St. Anthony a Doctor of the Church, the twenty-ninth, and to date, he is the only Portuguese Doctor of the Church.

The veneration of saints is central to popular devotion, and St. Anthony occupies a special place in this regard. Along with St. John and St. Peter, his popularity is associated with the festivals held on the summer solstice.

His image carrying the Child Jesus, which became common from the 16th century onward, is the favourite figure of popular piety, second only to the primordial representation, in which he appears with only a book, a reference to knowledge.

Throughout history, popular devotion has given St. Anthony various attributes: advocate for lost causes, protector of cattle, matchmaker saint, and from the 19th century onward, on the occasion of the centenary celebrations, defender of the Portuguese army—in fact, St. Anthony was incorporated into the Portuguese army in 1623, being promoted to captain in 1688 by King Pedro II (Rema 2019, p. 333)—and guardian of good business.

Júlio Castilho (1889) assures us that, in the early days of Portuguese nationality, there were no festivities that were not religious. Although these festivities were religious in origin and contained many pagan aspects, the Catholic Church remained attached to the celebrations of its saints, especially St. Anthony in Lisbon. In the Lisbon Patriarchate, there are eight parishes that have this Franciscan as their Patron Saint, with their own distinct feasts. These feast days begin thirteen days earlier with the “trezena” to the Saint, a form of prayer that, each day, delves deeper into the life and work of St. Anthony. The church next to the Cathedral also opens its doors at night to host various concerts, many of them fado, combining different ways of celebrating. The dynamic fado3 masses that take place there throughout the year have also been a way of attracting people to the church (Ecclesia 2015).

In addition, throughout the city, there are many immovable cultural assets that reflect devotion to St. Anthony, including various images of him, artistically crafted in tiles, “oradas” or niche altars, displayed on the walls of buildings in the streets of the capital’s neighbourhoods.

3. St. Anthony Within the Framework of Portuguese Popular Religion

The cult of St. Anthony is naturally situated in the Catholic theological universe but also in what is often called popular religion. Popular religion is considered to be that which does not coincide, which is not acceptable, which deviates from the precepts of beliefs and practices defined by the agents of the ecclesiastical institution, allowing believers relative autonomy and freedom (Maître 1968; Isambert 1982; Sanchis 1992; Sobral 1999; Yoder 1974). Understanding popular religion requires dialogue with established religion, and in Portugal, most believers are Catholics by affiliation, belief, and practice. Therefore, the exclusivity of the gaze could prevent understanding a belief that follows devotional itineraries that are not reduced to border relations with established religion. In this text, we follow Christian Parker’s conceptual proposal of popular religion, according to whom, “popular designates the expressions of ordinary people’s faith and the search for relationships with the divine (or the supernatural) in an individual or communitarian way—in a more direct and effective way—in their everyday lives” (Parker 2018, p. 97). The cult of St. Anthony, like popular religion in general, requires a phenomenological understanding of its beliefs and practices, which, despite their diversity, can be characterised by certain features. As stated by Parker, “the body and iconic expressions take an outstanding role in this less intellectual and dogmatic type of religiosity” (Parker 2018, p. 97).

Religious transcendence is insufficient for popular religion, and transcendent beings are often materialised in images. These corporeal images are not just a representation of a metaphysical being, they are the being itself. In this devotional universe, an image of St. Anthony is the Saint himself, and his power is in the image. This materialisation, on the one hand, gives the images agency and, on the other, allows the relationship to often be corporeal. Believers touch, hug, and kiss the images and carry images of St. Anthony on their shoulders, and in this way, participate in the power of the image. These beliefs and practices are predominantly carried out by women who take care of the family and who look after business by resorting to popular religion. This is in order to deal with everyday problems, trying to eliminate suffering or manage to live in spite of it, promoting the well-being of the household or the success of the business. Local cults centred around devotion to an invocation of the Virgin or a saint, such as St. Anthony, are the privileged place to manifest these beliefs and practices, which take on an aesthetic dimension in festive performance rituals (processions and pilgrimages) or devotional proximity to the natural space (bonfires, flowers, stones, earth, water) or the built environment (around chapels, churches, or shrines).

In popular religion, there is an intense spiritual bricolage through which believers appropriate symbols and religious forms from former religiosities existing before the established religions, re-signifying them. Such bricolage enables people to create, in a more communal or individualised way, a symbolic web that allows privileged access to the divine (which manifests itself through miracles) and to deal with life’s problems. Preventing illnesses and requesting family well-being and business success can be highlighted among those life challenges.

The contemporary relevance of popular religion is evident in the community festivals that still constitute a claim to local identity, as can be seen in the cult of St. Anthony in Lisbon. Religious modernity has valorised dimensions that are clearly present in popular religion, such as the relationship with nature, the intense presence of the role of women, and the direct, individual relationship with the divine, coated in great symbolic diversity. However, it is precisely this plasticity of popular religion that makes it indefinable and allows it to adapt to the most diverse social, cultural, and religious changes and remain alive, which is very evident in marriage or business, in Lisbon or in Viana do Castelo.

4. Religiosities of St. Anthony in Lisbon: Marches, Thrones and Weddings

The main public celebrations of St. Anthony, held cyclically in Lisbon, will be discussed here, including the popular marches, the thrones, and the weddings of St. Anthony.

The Lisbon Popular Marches (LPM) is the most important popular and neighbourly festival in the city of Lisbon. This commemorative artistic event is characterised by the performance of choreographed dances in a parade, accompanied by music, poetry, and song, performed by representatives of the competing neighbourhoods. It is held annually in June to commemorate the ‘Santos Populares’ (The Popular Saints Feasts) and is the result of a collective creation that is not fossilised but has a direct relationship with patterns of sociability, from which emerge the preservation and dynamic vivification of the social memory of the residents and especially the marchers of each neighbourhood involved. The monumental lights and colours on the marchers’ costumes, bows, and figures dazzle the large audience during the performances at the Meo Arena pavilion and, a week later, at the parades on Avenida da Liberdade—the capital’s central artery—on the night of 12–13 June. The 48 marchers from each of the 20 neighbourhoods in the competition and the 5 extra-competition marches are accompanied by 8 musicians, a standard-bearer from their community, a couple of young mascots (a girl and a boy under 10), a couple of godparents (usually well-known popular actors, singers, or television personalities who live in the neighbourhood), a pair of substitute marchers, and 4 water carriers (helpers), totalling around 2000 participants. The fact that different old and new neighbourhoods in Lisbon, supported by the Church and the municipality, so effusively and grandiosely celebrate St. Anthony reveals that this Saint is popular because he brings ethnic pride and local patriotism and encourages community and aggregative social and religious practices among the local population. Thus, the LPMs serve as a strong civic identity reference to the Alfacinhas of all generations; they qualify, define, and imprint the collective identity of the Portuguese capital’s territory.

In the LPMs, there are various elements dedicated to St. Anthony, such as the ‘surprise’ or huge figure of the Saint that appears in the middle of the choreographies during the marchers‘ performances, as well as iconography of the Saint in the costumes, in the lyrics, in the ladies’ bows, and in one of the bows that is also dedicated to him by the regulations (another bow is dedicated to Lisbon and another to the marching community).

As well as containing aspects of carnival parades, military parades, and religious processions (Costa 1991, p. 56), several authors also find the roots of the LPMs in the old celebrations of the summer solstice, the start of the harvest, and the medieval neighbourhood traditions of the old Junine or Joanine Festivals (etymology probably associated to ‘June’ or “St. John the Baptist”) of Iberian origin, to which were associated the religious celebrations dedicated to the three Popular Saints (St. Anthony, St. John, and St. Peter), practically coinciding at the time of year and widely documented in Iberian ethnography (Van Gennep 1949; Caro Baroja 1979).

They, thus, make up a calendar that some Portuguese ethnographers have classified as ‘winter rituals’ and ‘summer rituals’, linked to the Christian calendar (Santo 1990; E. V. Oliveira 1995) and which are also recorded in the literature of chroniclers and travellers (Beckford [1885] 1983; Lichnowsky 1845; Archivo Pittoresco 1860, p. 119).

Lisbon’s celebrations of the three Popular Saints have been documented since the end of the 15th century and are widespread throughout the country and the islands. For Gomes, the festivities dedicated to ‘St. Anthony were clearly the production of urban power: the Church and the Municipality of Lisbon, sometimes with the intervention of the king; those of St. John centred on fire and divinatory practices; while those of St. Peter unleashed less enthusiasm’ (M. E. R. Gomes 1985, pp. 26–29). The festivities on 13 June for St. Anthony (the date of his death in Padua in 1231) included official celebrations at the House of St. Anthony, a large procession, and liturgical services in the Church of the Saint.

This church is located on the site of the family house, where Fernando de Bulhões was born in 1191. It is close to the Cathedral, where a chapel was built and later a church, destroyed in the 1755 earthquake and later rebuilt on the same site. Such festivities were not only attended by the Royal Family, but countless processions or festivals took place officially and simultaneously throughout all the arteries of the city, where the “Thrones of Saint Anthony” appeared, in the devotion of faith to the Saint—a matchmaker with special powers to help find lost objects. Teófilo Braga ([1885] 1986) explains this gift, associating it with the pre-Roman cult of Ataecina, a deity who had similar abilities. Irisalva Moita (1981) preferred to link these powers to Mercury, the Roman god of thieves with a taste for devilry, since there was a tombstone dedicated to this god found near the Largo de Santo António (St. Anthony Square). The Antonine belief was born there and took root. In fact, the Lisbon City Council would eventually order that all “lost” papers be delivered to the Church of Santo António. The Saint, in effect, protects the city in the causes of the poor and oppressed, of lost objects, of pregnant women and married couples.

On the other hand, the celebrations of St. John, very strong in Porto, Braga, or the Sanjoaninas in Angra do Heroísmo, had a markedly profane character:

‘The artichokes [that sprout at this time], the basil and other aromatic herbs with magical powers, the marches and dances, the festive trees and masts, the casting of lots, the fireworks, are all elements that were part of the night of St. John that, until the beginning of the 20th century, are witnessed in Lisbon. At that time [the 17th and 18th centuries], the celebrations of St. Anthony already incorporated elements of the cult and imagery of St. John, to the extent that today there is a whole set of practices and representations common to the two most important saints of June’.

(Cordeiro 1997, pp. 46–47)

William Beckford, in his work on travelling, describes the celebrations of St. Anthony in Portugal in 1787 as a night of great excitement and festivities throughout the city of Lisbon (Alexander 1954, p. 60). Thus, during these June celebrations, there was already a habit of Lisboners coming out onto the streets to offer basil (“manjericos”), dance and sing, eat sardines, and drink throughout the night until dawn, when they went to wash in the springs, later to the fountains that appeared in Lisbon, especially after the inauguration of the Águas Livres Aqueduct, mixing sacred and profane traditions from the past and the present. ‘Since the time of Queen Maria I, the popular neighbourhoods used to hold a ‘round of the fountains’ in June, where people would line up two by two to wash their faces after festivals and blindfolds’ (Marques 2021). Raimundo also adds:

‘The ritual that the people of Lisbon practised, associated with the cult of St. Anthony, since the reign of the Mad Queen, with the approval of the Church (which gave up Saint Vincent as the Patron Saint of Lisbon, leaving him as the patron saint of the Patriarchate of Lisbon), was the round of the fountains. At the end of the night of the arraiais (Lit. “festivals”) and the cegadas4, at dawn on 13 June, the residents of Lisbon’s poor neighbourhoods would go to the fountains, two by two and in a single queue, to wash their faces, imitating the Parisian ‘14 Juillet’, evocative of the storming of the Bastille. ‘Marche aux Flambeaux‘ [Lit. March with Torches], as the French used to call it, parading with torches; “Marcha do Flambó”, as they called it here’.

(Raimundo 2015)

The iconic Portuguese actress of the 1940s, Beatriz Costa, also used to say ‘Marcha ao Filambó’.

The custom of organising queues of people to celebrate the Popular Saints dates back to the 19th century when it was customary for boys and girls to go to Lisbon’s fountains after singing, not only to refresh themselves after the effort they had made but also in the belief that the Popular Saints would protect them and bring them luck and happy marriages.

The fact that the girls carried clay jars or pitchers, which were filled with water blessed by the popular saints, on those nights would have to do with the legend that St. Anthony played pranks on the girls who went to the fountain to get water and, sometimes, broke their jugs and arranged for them to stay there, all in a healthy game. This may have happened from time to time, and hence, the legend of the “miracle of the jug” has continued over time, having been recorded in the popular imagination (Vaz dos Santos 2014, p. 175) or in the verses of Fernando Pessoa, from 1935: “They are worth more than the sermons you actually preached; The jugs that maybe you didn’t fix” (Pessoa 1986).

In the LPMs, the religious element is present, not in an institutionalised way, but spontaneously, in the marchers’ faith in their St. Anthony. This can be seen when some marchers go to the Church of St. Anthony, where they pray, usually to beg for good luck for the LPMs competition, or when they make the sign of the cross with their hand on their forehead and shoulders when passing by the Saint’s altars, insignia, or figures, or in the backstage of the pavilion right before each performance, or at the entrance to the competition parades, or in devotion to Our Lady of Fátima, as some still go to her sanctuary in Leiria (North of Portugal) to ask for blessings, and bring from there a “relic” of good luck for the contest.

The high moments of the celebration of St. Anthony, such as the LPMs, are also an opportunity for Lisbon’s inhabitants to perform, compete, and show locally and on national television their pride in their own neighbourhood’s cultural and historical singularities. It is an occasion for local communities to unite, to shine in pride but also in solidarity among neighbours who, directly or backstage, participate in each march or who assist, watch, attend, and cheerlead during all the performances. Celebrating the Saint with hope, faith, and joy is a moment not only to break from everyday life but also to pass and transmit the local faith, traditions, and identity to the younger generation of residents.

Another established tradition is the Thrones of Saint Anthony. These are simple or more elaborate altars designed according to the talents and creativity of those who build them. Cardboard boxes are used for steps, thread carts are used as candlesticks, and cut paper is used to decorate the altar. It has become customary for children to ask for “a little coin for St. Anthony”. This habit arose due to the need to rebuild the Saint’s Church, destroyed in the 1755 earthquake, which led the children to erect such thrones, next to which they made the collection, which expanded in Lisbon beyond its original cause. The first Thrones of Saint Anthony appeared in the 17th century, but their construction quickly became popular, especially among the youth population. Children used to create small thrones, which they placed at the door of their houses. During the day, they would walk the streets asking for “five little Reis” (the Portuguese currency in 1932) and then “one thousand little Reis” for the Saint, a custom that would end up becoming the “penny to St. Anthony”, as also portrayed in the 1942 film Pátio das Cantigas (Lit. the “Songs Courtyard”).

Despite being popular, according to the Olisipographer Júlio de Castilho (1889), these thrones were “one of the customs” that began to appear on the streets “at the end of May” in the 19th century but were falling into disuse and were disappearing. In 1949, in order to revive this practice, the Municipality of Lisbon began to promote competitions among children in the neighbourhoods of Alfama, Bairro Alto, Madragoa, and Mouraria. The first had 74 participants and was based in the Cultural Services Division, located at Palácio Galveias in Campo Pequeno. The thrones would have to “be armed on public streets, without compromising traffic, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on June 12th and 13th”, and competitors were prohibited from asking for alms. Evaluating the constructions were the Culture Councillor Arménio Cortês Pinto, the Director of the Municipality’s Central Services, Jaime Lopes Dias, two ethnographers and representatives of the Friends of Lisbon group and the Federation of Education and Recreation Societies. The thrones in the competition, built on doorsteps and in windows, on top of platforms or on benches, were then displayed on the public street, next to the Cultural Services Division, between the 12th and 13th of June. In the following years, the competition expanded to other neighbourhoods, and similar initiatives emerged, organised by associations and even newspapers, as was the case with Diário Popular, which would be responsible for promoting another tradition of Popular Saints in Lisbon—the Weddings of St. Anthony. The prize was always monetary and acted as an incentive. In the 1980s and again since 2015, the throne competitions would be recovered as a municipal initiative, organised by EGEAC, integrated into the Lisbon festivities and carried out with the support of the Lisbon Museum—Santo António, which provides the support structures for the small altars (EGEAC 2021). Several entities spread across the city are involved as material authors and recipients of the Thrones of Santo António, including neighbourhood communities, commercial establishments (shops and restaurants), parish councils, Santa Casa da Misericórdia, Catholic institutions, schools, and museums (Banha 2017, pp. 95–96). Of this tradition, only one example remains today, spontaneously assembled by residents in front of the Church of São Miguel in the Alfama neighbourhood. Through the revitalisation of the thrones contest by the municipality, new residents (especially the younger) are today sensitised and made aware of the cultural and religious significance of St. Anthony to the city.

Finally, the Casamentos de Santo António (Lit. St. Anthony’s Weddings) were established. Initially, these were called the “Brides of Santo António” and had Diário Popular as a promoter. In 1958, the newspaper intended to encourage support for 26 disadvantaged couples in the city to carry out their marriages, counting on the Municipality of Lisbon as a partner entity. The initiative was interrupted in 1974 and would be resumed in 1997, under the name Casamentos de Santo António, with the organisation passing from the presidency of the municipality to the hands of EGEAC in 2019. In 2001, the “Weddings of St. Anthony” became part of the Lisbon Festivities, and the brides and grooms—always numbering 16 couples—also began to have “a foot” in the LPMs parades. Some grooms are even marchers. To select these 16 couples, registrations open around January–February, with a commission appointed for this purpose. Eleven pairs of newlyweds get married in the Cathedral, and another five in a civil ceremony in the municipality’s Noble Hall. Other partners come together to support with suits, dresses, shoes, makeup, hairstyles, gifts, and honeymoon trips for the brides and grooms (namely ateliers and bridal shops, jewellery shops, a dental clinic, Lisbon Casino, the Costa Azul Antique Car Club, and the Azores Tourism are regular sponsors). For religious marriage, the strategic partner is the Patriarchate, which not only prepares the couples but also carries out the religious service in the Cathedral (CML 2022). There is also preparation with the Cathedral’s scenographer, while an artistic director, hired by EGEAC, rehearses the couples for the day’s ceremonies, which culminates in the Avenida parade, where they have to dance a waltz in front of the Presidential Tribune (also broadcasted live on national television) after all the neighbourhood marchers have descended. Usually, the brides are offered and wear on their wedding day a necklace with a medal of St. Anthony, to bring them luck and blessings.

The Diário de Lisboa of 12 June 1932 recalls that: “Lisbon celebrates, like every year, the night of Saint Anthony. As a novelty, the spectacle of popular marches is offered, with their music, songs, hundreds of couples, dances and singings, in Parque Mayer, tonight”. The newspaper Diário de Notícias on the following day, the 13th, stated that: “at 11 p.m. the Park regurgitated with the biggest crowd of people ever recorded in memory”.

Still, in 1958, the “Brides of St. Anthony”, the Franciscan friar who became a saint, who had been popularly elected as the “matchmaker” and, by the Church, as the “patron” of the Portuguese in 1934, joined the festivities.

The “Brides of Saint Anthony” were first married in the Cathedral of Lisbon (Araújo 1939–1940, p. 24), next to the Saint’s chapel, built on what had been his parents’ house. Later, civil marriages emerged, but out of respect for the faith (or lack of it) of those who got married on the Saint’s Day, the religious celebrations of the “Brides of Saint Anthony” are still blessed by the Saint in the Cathedral, until today.

The favouring of the expression “Brides of St. Anthony” also illustrates the feminine bias and its role in a patriarchal society, as protected by the Saint to procreate and take care of children and the home. If one asks an Alfacinha, “What is this ceremony?” the person will most certainly reply: “Noivas de Santo António” (Brides of St. Anthony).

While in Lisbon, the major manifestations of devotion to St. Anthony, like the LPMs, are the result of more institutional action, in Viana do Castelo, as will be shown below, there is no evidence of such institutional initiative (by the Church or any other Catholic organisation nor by the civil entity, for e.g., the Commercial Association) to promote the presence of images in commercial spaces. There, they are an individual choice of the shopkeeper and, possibly, of his closest family and social sphere. In Lisbon, the Saint’s celebrations are popular but also exuberant, noisy, crowded, and highly supported by the Catholic patriarchy and the political powers, namely, the municipality.

5. St. Anthony in Viana do Castelo: Commerce and Religion

The cult of St. Anthony has a secular expression in the district of Viana do Castelo. The presence of monastic houses under his invocation is relevant, highlighting the Convent of Santo António, in Ponte de Lima, belonging to the Province of Santo António dos Capuchos of the Kingdom of Portugal, which was in the 17th century one of the largest houses of the Order in Portugal, and the monastery of Santo António de Caminha, of more remote origin. In addition to several chapels spread throughout the district, we find churches dedicated to him in Monção, Ponte de Lima, and Viana do Castelo. In the municipality of Viana do Castelo, at the end of the 18th century, there were chapels erected in his devotion or under his invocation in the parishes of Afife, Anha, Meadela, Deocriste, Lanheses, and Santa Marta de Portuzelo (Capela 2005, p. 347).

Painted wooden panels, oil paintings, and sculptures of different quality and size fill the sacred spaces with Antonian imagery and iconography. At the end of the 18th century, there were 29 brotherhoods with this invocation in the district. Although it represented only 5% of the universe of brotherhoods or fraternities, it was the fifth most common invocation, behind the Souls of Purgatory, Lady of the Rosary, Santíssimo Sacramento, and St. Sebastian (Capela 2005, p. 81). The “saint matchmaker” and protector of animals has been, throughout history until today, the object of outcries, pilgrimages, and processions.

In Viana do Castelo, the urban space is marked by the Convent of Santo António, founded in the 17th century. Its facade features the image of the Saint in stone, placed in a niche that tops the entrance arch. It is also in a niche on Avenida Rocha Páris, where one can currently find a living expression of popular religiosity and the cult of St. Anthony. Embedded in the wall of a residence, facing the public space, we find an image next to which, anonymously and daily, flowers are placed, and candles are lit.

The presence of St. Anthony is observable, even if sometimes hidden from view, in hundreds of commercial establishments in the city of Viana do Castelo. On shelves, next to the cash register, in the most hidden areas of the commercial space, in drawers, and on walls in plain sight, images of St. Anthony are often invested by the owners of commercial establishments with beneficent qualities.

The relationship between commerce and religion is ancestral and current, as attested by the most diverse sanctuaries that populate the Catholic religious landscape and which constitute places of commerce. If we focus only on the religions of the Book, we will see that pilgrimages to places considered sacred in Judaism (for example, Jerusalem), Islam (for example, Mecca), and Christianity (for example, Santiago de Compostela) are a good expression of the commercial dynamism present there, which translates into accommodation, food, alms, or the purchase of souvenirs.

However, it is not so evident that places of commerce present religious expressions, as the bureaucratisation of the market suggests forms of capitalist rationality (Weber 2000) that exclude the religious. We know that, in the first half of the 20th century, Max Weber assured us that the Protestant ethic would favour the capitalist spirit (Weber 2018), and Walter Benjamin affirmed capitalism as a religion (Benjamin 2016); however, at the end of the last century, George Ritzer’s conceptual proposal for analysing the production process leaves no room for religion. From the outset, it is important to highlight that this sociologist uses the concept of “McDonaldization” to refer to the “principles of the fast-food restaurant coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as of the rest of the world” (Ritzer 1993, p. 1). Therefore, it should be noted that, according to Ritzer, MacDonald’s economic equation emphasises efficiency, calculation, prediction, and control (Ritzer 1993, p. 12), confirming the absence of the religious, in fact, in line with the secularisation process of Western societies.

However, Viana do Castelo (Portugal), the presence of religious figures in places of commerce is recurrent and unequivocal, which is reflected in small religious figurines, particularly of St. Anthony. This also occurs in other places regarding religious figures other than St. Anthony (Nakamaki 1992). As Edmund Leach reminds us, the materialisation of metaphysical entities allows not only physical existence but also that people can relate phenomenologically to entities (Leach 1992, pp. 55–61) such as St. Anthony. As we mentioned previously, these figurines condense the power of the Saint within themselves.

In Viana do Castelo, fieldwork was carried out in 180 places of commerce, 139 of which were found to have religious elements. That is, two-thirds of the places of commerce studied have religious elements, which, from the outset, highlights the relevance of the topic under study. In these places of commerce, 230 religious or symbolic elements of different devotional types were found. First, the Catholic trilogy of images of invocations of Mary and Christ and various saints, but also sacred or symbolic entities from other religious territories. The presence of local religious images was evident, such as Santa Luzia or Senhora da Agonia, but also regional ones, such as São Bartolomeu dos Mártires and São Bento, national figures such as Nossa Senhora de Fátima, and even international ones, such as São Tiago. However, the most frequently present religious element is St. Anthony, with 92 of the 230 images found being his, a total of 40%.

Indeed, one of the most notable features of this religious expression is the intense presence of St. Anthony. Sometimes, the Saint appears alone; other times, he is accompanied. In this case, as some people told us, “St. Anthony doesn’t like to be alone”. Even if St. Anthony is attributed with a certain aversion to solitude, none of those interviewed suggested that the Saint could choose his company, and this may be more or less familiar to him. If often St. Anthony is accompanied by figures from the Catholic religious landscape, in other places, he appears accompanied by more heteroclite figures, such as the Japanese Lucky Cat—Maneki Neko—or a bay leaf.

Equally relevant is knowing who took the initiative to place St. Anthony in the place of commerce. Often, it was owners and employees who bought and placed St. Anthony in stores, “the best thing is for it to be offered”, said several people. For example, one lady told us that it was her mother-in-law who gave it as a gift, another told us that it was her mother who gave it as a gift, and often it is friends or even customers who give it. One lady reported that when she moved to that store, he was already there, and she let him stay. As can be seen from these reports, as well as from the majority of field research, those who take the initiative to buy or give gifts, who take care of the management and ornamentation of the Saint, sometimes in dialogues with other entities, are women. Indeed, this devotional dynamic is markedly feminine.

However, it is not enough to have St. Anthony. It is essential to define the position that the image should occupy. However, the reports from the field reflect diversity because if, for some, the Saint’s position is the result of the success of the business, if “sales are good, the Saint turns to the door, if sales are bad, the Saint turns his back to the door”; for others, the Saint’s action is propitiatory, “for good luck St. Anthony must have his back to the door”.

The intense presence of St. Anthony contrasts with the apparent absence of biographical, miraculous, or associative elements that explicitly relate St. Anthony to commerce. In his life and in his actions, we find several traits, for example, related to study, translated into the iconographic presence of a book, as he was a preacher, or with marriage, as we studied in this work; however, nothing related to commerce. Now, the invention of this tradition (Hobsbawm 1984) suggests that in this “religious field” (Bourdieu 2007), lay people are not mere consumers, as Bourdieu (2007) suggests, but can constitute themselves as producers of goods, at least symbolic ones. It is clear that in Viana do Castelo, and possibly in other places, there is a cultural pattern that suggests that St. Anthony favours business. Therefore, perhaps a collective belief was reproduced, distinct from the Saint’s biography, which associates him with the dimensions of commerce.

Furthermore, the presence of the religious does not require business agents to belong to the religion to which the image is originally affiliated. As St. Anthony is generally offered, refusal to do so would mean an affirmation of a rupture with the possible power of the image, which seems not to necessarily require a belief in the Saint. In other words, Santo’s non-refusal suggests that those interviewed believe that the image or its absence could affect their business.

In fact, the main motivation for the presence of religious images in commercial establishments is to promote sales and generic protection for the establishment and employees, translated into expressions frequently heard in the field, “give luck” or “say it gives luck”. Note that in this last formulation, the respondents do not clearly and objectively link themselves to the belief, even though they expect its results, which they call luck.

Although for some, the relationship of affective devotion to the Saint and even “affective sacramentalization of the sacred image” (Meslin 1988, p. 272) is clear, for everyone, the instrumental recourse to the powers attributed to the Saint, particularly to his image, is evident. Indeed, as William Christian reminds us, ”there is a “more personal” or “useful” part of popular religion” (Christian 1976, p. 86) that allows us to deal with the fear of the uncontrollable (Tolosana 2004, p. 29). Now, the growing rationality of business does not exempt it from uncertainties. Uncertainty often requires diligence to control it, one of which is, therefore, resorting to religion.

Considering that Viana do Castelo is situated in a predominantly Catholic religious landscape, the deliberate accumulation of wealth is not seen as morally valuable. This, perhaps, explains the importance of the image of St. Anthony being mostly offered. Thus, the instrumental use of the religious to achieve success in business is sublimated by the intervention of another agent, who offers the image of the Saint but does not directly capitalise on the power of his action. Therefore, the repeated expression “it is better that he [St. Anthony] be offered” contributes to preventing any moral disapproval of sinful greed.

Naturally, the “global flows of culture” (Appadurai 2004) affect local worlds, in this case, favouring clear religious syncretism in the places of commerce in Viana do Castelo. Thus, we find images of St. Anthony on the ground accompanied by other images from his religious family, such as invocations of the Virgin and Christ, saints, religious objects such as rosaries, but also images and objects heterogeneous to Catholicism and in some cases on the border of religiosity itself, such as the Japanese Lucky Cat—Maneki Neko—images of the Buddha, the Hand of Fatima, the Lucky Monkey, Santa Claus, Jupiter in Olympus, or a bay leaf.

Finally, it is worth mentioning the 41 places of commerce, that is, a quarter, which do not have religious elements. If, in some cases, the decision arises from personal convictions, we see that multinational company stores do not display religious elements. In one case, we were told that there was a religious element in the warehouse; in all the others, we did not find any religious mark. In the case of brands that move globally, the religious diversity of consumers is undeniable, so the affirmation of religious materiality could exclude people and affect profits. Therefore, at least in Viana do Castelo (and eventually internationally), there seems to be a secularism that accompanies the ideological conceptions of multinational brands.

6. Conclusions

This study presents a short historical description of St. Anthony, characterising his cult within the Portuguese popular religion’s framework. It also tries to understand the reasons why this devotive cult is manifested in grand public celebrations (such as the Lisbon Popular Marches, the setting of thrones of the Saint on the streets, and the pretext for collective weddings) in Lisbon, while in the northern city of Viana do Castelo, the Saint is part of the set of religious images displayed as popular religious figures in commercial spaces. This comparative analysis also tried to look for common features between the apparently diverse religious expressions devoted to St. Anthony in these two locations. The findings show that in Lisbon and Viana, there are similarities and disparities in the cult of St. Anthony in terms of gender, materiality, and institutional versus personal religious expressions.

The historical summary presented on St. Anthony enables us to confirm that this Saint, who was born in Lisbon, has been the most revered, not only in the Portuguese capital city but also throughout the whole country, since the Middle Ages until the present day. In fact, he became the Patron Saint of Portugal in 1934—the same year the Lisbon Popular Marches (a historically grassroots spontaneous event) became formally organised by the municipality.

The research enabled us to notice that, in each of the study locations, communities present idiosyncratic ways of expressing devotion to St. Anthony. In relation to the study site Viana do Castelo, here, as in The Madonna of 115th Street in Italian Harlem, described by Robert Orsi, religion means “what matters” (Orsi 2010, p. LXI), and what matters is that the images of St. Anthony are a strategy to favour and protect the business, as is evident throughout the work. For the agents, the supernatural power of the Saint is closely linked to the image (Turner and Turner 1978, p. 143); effectively, as David Morgan reminds us, “all enchantment operates as a recognition of power within things” (Morgan 2018, p. 7). On the other hand, the preponderance of the presence of images of St. Anthony is often inserted in syncretic religious landscapes, which reflects not only the expression of popular religiosity but also the global movement of people, beliefs, and their materialities.

With regard to the study site Lisbon, the exuberance of the celebration of the Saint is notable as the most important popular festival in the Portuguese capital, as he is the most venerated as a protector and miracle worker of lost causes, the poor, and marriages. The thrones, the weddings, and the LPMs grand parade marches held on the city’s main avenue on the 13th of June, the masses sung in fado in the Saint’s Church, and the decorations with allusions to the Saint in the festivals in all the old neighbourhoods, demonstrate this veneration well.

In addition to the unique places of worship of St. Anthony, it was possible to verify some regularities. Firstly, there is a clear, strong female expression in worship. We can notice this in Lisbon with the “Brides of St. Anthony” and in Viana do Castelo, where all the care with the images of the Saint and the other images that make up these altars in places of commerce is carried out predominantly by women. This female predominance is a strong feature of popular religion, evident in the most diverse works carried out on Portuguese territory, in the north (Hoogen 1984; Pina Cabral 1989; Cole 1994; Gemzöe 2009), in the centre (Riegelhaupt 1982; Sobral 1999), and in the south (Cutileiro 1977).

On the other hand, it is essential to highlight the devotional plasticity of St. Anthony. In addition to favouring business in Viana do Castelo and the celebrations of the neighbourhood collective or the blessing of marriage in Lisbon, St. Anthony’s skills are diverse: finding lost objects, protector of lovers, the poor, the travellers, the bricklayers, the bakers, or fertility for sterile women. This diversity of valences allows the Saint to adjust to the old and new needs of devotees. A convergence, however, is found in the cult’s exuberance of associated material culture, as in both locations (Lisbon and Viana), the creative reproduction and display of the Saint’s images are found in Viana’s commercial spots, as much as in the figures, accessories, or arches of the LPMs, in the thrones of St. Anthony, or in the necklaces with St. Anthony medals, to bring luck and blessings to the couple.

Finally, the continuity and relevance of the cult of St. Anthony are clear, both due to its predominance in the religious sanctuaries of the commercial areas of Viana do Castelo and due to the expressive dimension of the St. Anthony celebrations in Lisbon, from the spontaneous medieval popular feast to the spectacular marches structured by important newspapers and the Capitólio municipal theatre, in 1932, and by the municipality in 1934, which take place annually on the June solstice, until today. Despite the transformations and adaptations undergone by these religious manifestations, according to the contexts over the centuries, the fervour for St. Anthony has never been lost, nor does it show signs of losing its splendour.