For three and a half centuries the faithful of Vera have every Easter Friday yielded to the procession of the Virgin of Anguish. The great devotion to the image meant that in 1888 it was declared Patron of the locality.
The Illustrious and Venerable Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Holy Virgin of Anguish signed an act of constitution on 22nd of April in order to shortly afterwards be established with the image with since then has recalled every Easter Friday night the pain of the loss of Christ.
This treasure of the Veran, and by extension Almerian imagery, is by an unknown artist. Nor is it known exactly when it was made, the date having to be in the months or years after the signing of the act of constitution.
What is certain is that this image, of boxwood and fabrics pasted in the form of a tunic, managed from the beginning to install itself in and to strengthen the faith of the Vera devout. Many ancestors have for centuries lived their faith in Jesus Christ through the Holy Mary and in 1888, coinciding with the fourth century since the arrival of the Catholic Monarchs in the town, the Virgin of Anxiety was proclaimed Patron Saint of Vera. From this time, although the origin was basically the procession of the Passion, not only has the station of penitence been celebrated during Easter Week, but the reconquest of Vera is also remembered at the beginning of June, with commemorative procession and numerous activities, festive and religious.
The image of the Patron Saint accompanies in procession every Easter Friday Our Lord in the Tomb, a work which dates from 1950. The image of the recumbent body was made by Father José María Vera and is carried by men on a throne of cedar and beech wood.
The station of penitence is completed by the sculpture by Our Father Jesus tied to the Column, made in 1988, in which our Lord is represented before the flagellation. The artist was the Seville religious image maker, and it is carried on a throne of Neo-baroque style made in the same year.
After many generations of the devout, from the House of the Brotherhood and its canonical see at the Virgin of the Anxiety Hermitage, close to 600 brothers watch over it to maintain the memory of the Holy Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ.
