The town of Belmonte, perched atop a rocky hilltop in northern Portugal, is dominated by a giant stone cross, a ruined castle and the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Family. On each Holy Thursday, Father Jose Marins Registo brings from the church an image of Jesus bearing the cross to Calvary. Followed by children dressed as angels, he parades through the streets to the main square, where he meets a second procession displaying an image of the Virgin Mary. On Good Friday there is another procession and a symbolic burial, after which the priest carries a cross from house to house for the people to kiss. On Easter Sunday, as on the days before, the whole town goes to Mass and most of the 6,000 inhabitants hang their best embroidered bedspreads or tablecloths from their balconies.
Eat Secretly. There will be other religious rites in Belmonte this week, observed not in church and public square but behind the closed doors of private homes. About 100 families who are officially parishioners at Holy Family will secretly eat pão ázimo (unleavened bread), but only beginning on the third day of Passover so that no neighbor can see them baking it on the traditional day of preparation. One morning before the other villagers are awake, to avoid detection, the secret worshipers will steal down to the bank of the Zezere River. There they will beat the waters with olive branches to commemorate the parting of the Red Sea.
Such is the underground Passover of the people traditionally known as Marranos (secret Jews), a word that originally meant pigs. They live not only in Belmonte but also in many other mountain towns in northern Portugal. Forced to convert to Christianity in the 15th century, they still follow Jewish customs that have been passed on by word of mouth across nearly five centuries. Though they have had virtually no contact with the rest of the world's Jews, many authentic prayers have survived in their ritual, alongside such Christian accretions as the Lord's Prayer.
Most Marranos are publicly married and buried as Catholics—"to cover up," as one of them puts it. During Holy Week and throughout the year, many of them attend Mass. But as they go into the church they pray to themselves: "When I enter here I adore neither wood nor stone but only the God of Israel who rules all." Each Friday they light a Sabbath oil lamp, which is hidden inside an earthen pot lest other villagers see it. They prepare a menu consisting only of fish and vegetables because at one time it was dangerous for them to buy kosher meat for the Sabbath; now they consider mainstream Jews sinful because they eat meat on the seventh day. The Marranos shun all Saturday work, a telltale sign of their identity, but paradoxically, most of the men have not been circumcised because that could disclose their secret.
The secrecy is senseless, in a way. since most of their neighbors know that the Marranos are Jews. But their hideous history explains why they remain a people in hiding. In the 15th century, Portugal's 200,000 Jews made up one-fifth of the population. Many of them were refugees from the Spanish Inquisition, and they came to play an important role in finance and scholarship. When King Manuel I sought to marry the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, however, Spain's fervently Catholic monarchs told Manuel that he would have to get rid of the Jews in return.