Veneration
Besides Pamplona, San Fermín is venerated in other places in Navarre, such as Lesaka, in the fiesta called the Regata del Bidasoa. In the village of San Fermín de Aldapa, the martyrdom of Saint Fermin is still commemorated on September 25. On the preceding Thursday to Sunday there are numerous festivities there, in the Navarrería and near the Cathedral. Celebrations begin with a firework rocket set off by a youngster from the Navarrería, who has been given the title of the little mayor. As at Pamplona, the celebrations have a special closing ceremony called Pobre de Mí (Poor Me).
When certain relics of the saint were brought back to Pamplona in 1196, the city decided to mark the occasion with an annual event. Over the centuries, the saint's festival, the ancient annual fair and the running of the bulls and subsequent bullfights have all melded together.
The cult of St Firmin was of great religious and economic importance to Amiens during the Middle Ages and into modern times. Legends grew up to explain the discovery of the saint's relics, most of which were held at Amiens. He is represented in a number of major works of art in Amiens Cathedral.
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Famous quotes containing the word veneration:
“Erasmus was the light of his century; others were its strength: he lighted the way; others knew how to walk on it while he himself remained in the shadow as the source of light always does. But he who points the way into a new era is no less worthy of veneration than he who is the first to enter it; those who work invisibly have also accomplished a feat.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“It is evident, from their method of propagation, that a couple of cats, in fifty years, would stock a whole kingdom; and if that religious veneration were still paid them, it would, in twenty more, not only be easier in Egypt to find a god than a man, which Petronius says was the case in some parts of Italy; but the gods must at last entirely starve the men, and leave themselves neither priests nor votaries remaining.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)