A symbolic protest temporarily transformed one of Venice ’s best-known religious buildings into a place to demand the rights of sex workers. On Monday, June 2, the church of San Nicola da Tolentino, known as “dei Tolentini,” in the sestiere of Santa Croce, was the scene of a flash mob organized by the Committee for the Civil Rights of Prostitutes, in collaboration with the European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance (ESWA). The prostitutes first occupied the steps of the church of San Simeon Piccolo, and then, there were about a hundred of them, they moved, with the red umbrellas that characterize their movement, to the Tolentini, where they laid votive offerings to commemorate the occupation of the church of Saint Nizier in Lyon by a hundred prostitutes, back in 1975, exactly fifty years ago.
The initiative of the “red umbrellas” (the symbol dates back to 2001, when some prostitutes walked through the calli of Venice with red umbrellas as part of an event related to the “Pavilion of the Prostitutes,” a project that Slovenian artist Tadej Pogačar, born in 1960, was bringing to the Venice Biennale at the time representing his country), has provoked a strong reaction from the Venetian Church, which has strongly condemned the occupation of a sacred space. The protest, according to the organizers, was intended to draw public and institutional attention to the difficulties, marginalization and conditions in which thousands of sex workers in Italy and Europe operate.
During the flash mob, passages from the Gospel of Luke were read, particularly those alluding to the forgiveness of sins in relation todeep love, an explicit reference to the figure of Magdalene. A parody of the Eucharistic rite was also staged in the churchyard: some participants symbolically broke a loaf of bread, accompanying the gesture with the words “this is my body,” in a clear reference to the Christian liturgical formula. The chants and slogans chanted during the demonstration, combined with the clothing considered provocative by the activists, provoked disapproving reactions from many of the faithful.
Several people present called the occupation a “desecration,” expressing dismay at the use of a consecrated space for purposes that, although civil, were deemed inappropriate to the context. The response of the Patriarchate of Venice was not long in coming. In a note released to the press, the director of the Social Communications Office, Fr. Marco Zane, expressed “deep regret” over the incident, pointing out that the sacred building was used without any authorization from the ecclesiastical authorities. “With amazement and true sorrow we have witnessed inside and outside a sacred place scenes in which some Gospel passages have been instrumentalized,” claimed the Patriarchate’s director of social communications, Fr. Zane. “And the meaning of the sacrament of the Eucharist was distorted in an offensive and blasphemous way. I condemn and dissociate myself in the most absolute way from what happened.” The invitation, reads the conclusion of the note, is to “a restorative prayer.”
“Nothing had been agreed upon, we were in the dark,” claims Father Giuseppe Magrino, parish administrator of the Frari, speaking to local newspaper Il Gazzettino. “Perhaps it would have been appropriate to call the Police, but in the end it was not done so as not to magnify the matter further. Of course, the church is everyone’s home and precisely as such it should be respected and those who enter it should behave politely. Common sense invokes good manners. An educated person knows when to stop and knows how to respect the rules for healthy coexistence.”
The Venetian flash mob is part of a larger framework, linked, as mentioned above, to the memory of the occupation of the Saint-Nizier church in Lyon on June 2, 1975. At the time, a hundred French prostitutes decided to occupy the sacred place to denounce violence, persecution and discriminatory treatment by the authorities. Fifty years later, the Committee for the Civil Rights of Prostitutes wanted to re-enact that event, reiterating how many of the conditions denounced then are still present today.
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| Venice, prostitutes occupy Tolentini church for flash-mob. Patriarchate protests |
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