Assumption Day in Positano

A particularly felt feast by the Amalfi and Sorrento Coast inhabitants is on August 15th the Assumption Our Lady Day considered the protectress of Positano town.

During this feast it is recalled an ancient legend that tells of a ship, with on board a Byzantine icon of the Our Lady, stopped by the calm in the bay of Positano. Only when the sailors gave the icon to the inhabitants of Positano they succeeded in leaving.

The celebrations last different days.  They start on Monday August 5th with the classic ceremony "Esce à Maronna" (Our Lady goes out), the Assumption Our Lady's statue is brought out of the chapel of saint Stephen, where it is during the year, and it is set on the throne where it stays up to on August 22nd and with the solemn religiopus celebration at 7.00p.m. in the Mother Church S. Maria Assunta.

On Monday August 12th there is the classical appointment with the concert at the dawn on the Mother Church square at 5.00 a.m., "Dell'Aurora tu sorgi più bella", Russian National Orchestra in concert, conductor M. Scibilia, edited by the S.C.S. of Sorrento.

On August 14th at 9.30 a.m. in the Church S. Maria Assunta there is the solemn celebration presided by S.E. Mons. Orazio Soricelli,
archbishop of Amalfi and of Cava dei Tirreni, and afterwards there is the traditional ceremony of the "Lifting of the Picture", while on
August 14th in the evening at 7.00 p.m. there is the embarkation on the dock "Massine" of the big beach for the sea procession and the deposition of a crown to the monument of the navies of the world, on the Positano dock. At 7.30 p.m. there is the mass in Praiano and then the sea procession to the rock-cliff of the "Mother and Child" near the tower of Fornillo, to pay homage to the tile representing the Positano Our Lady set in sea on the rock-cliff called "Mother". The tile commemorates an episode happened during the second world war: the English submersible "Safari" launched a torpedo against the Italian steamboat "Salemi" to sink it, but the torpedo inexplicably missed it and it went to break against the rock-cliff of the "Mother" destroying it; according to the Positano sailors it would have been Our Lady to attract the torpedo to herself. The steamboat was however sunk together with the other steamboat "Valsavoia", but the Positano inhabitants lowering their boats in the sea succeeded in saving almost all the shipwrecked people.

On August 15th after the mass in the Mother Church at 7.30 p.m. there is the procession on the beach with the Our Lady Assumption Statue. According to an ancient Positano custom to the statue passage you have to look on the beach for "punctured stones", that is stones with  a hole from a side to the other one, considered lucky charms, some are employed to create leaning of necklaces or earrings. At midnight from the sea mirror in front of Positano there is the traditional pyrotechnic show while the band concert "Minori Town" will cheer the day, performing in the evening on the dock "Massine" a select program of symphonic music.

On August 22nd, Santa Maria Regina Day, the closing of the celebrations with the repositioning of the statue in its chapel and the descent of the Picture immediately after the mass of the 6.30 p.m. in the Church of Saint Maria Assunta.