Nicaraguan Churches Overflow During Holy Week Despite Government Restrictions

Nicaragua’s Catholic churches saw massive attendance during Holy Week 2026, even as the Ortega-Murillo regime maintained severe restrictions on public religious expression and deployed police surveillance at worship sites, according to exiled Nicaraguan priests and religious freedom monitors.

Father Edwing Román, a Nicaraguan priest exiled in Florida, reported that while the regime canceled thousands of traditional Lenten and Holy Week activities—including group pilgrimages, public processions with religious images and music, and nationwide passion play reenactments—the faithful still packed churches for permitted indoor services.

Since 2022, the government has banned all religious processions in streets and public thoroughfares. “Religious celebrations have been restricted to inside the churches, courtyards, or atriums, under police surveillance,” Román explained to ACI Prensa.

Holy Week was celebrated “in an atypical manner” without full religious freedom, said Román, who serves at St. Agatha Parish in Miami. “Thank God, the churches were filled with the faithful of all ages even as they endured the presence of police and infiltrators.”

Martha Patricia Molina, author of “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church,” documented on social media that police photographed and recorded attendees entering and leaving Easter Vigil services. She also reported Sandinista guards harassing a Procession of the Encounter at a Managua archdiocese parish.

Despite government propaganda encouraging citizens to visit beaches and tourist centers—many owned by Sandinista allies—Román emphasized that “thousands of the faithful attended churches.”

The U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Christopher Landau, denounced the Nicaraguan government’s ban on public Holy Week processions in late March, expressing hope to see “the day when our Nicaraguan friends reclaim their religious freedom.”

The Ortega regime responded with a statement titled “Utterly False,” claiming “thousands of religious activities” were occurring nationwide while avoiding mention of the public procession ban. Molina’s research indicates the dictatorship has banned over 28,900 public processions and acts of popular piety since 2019.

Exiled priests noted unusually extensive pro-government media coverage of Holy Week services, with one anonymous cleric suggesting this reflected “the government’s fear regarding the current situation and the sanctions involving Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran.”

Román observed that pro-government media “made their presence felt—going so far as to climb onto the high altar in the midst of a service—to take photographs inside the churches for their political propaganda, thereby denying the existence of any prohibitions.”

Four Nicaraguan dioceses currently lack their bishops’ physical presence due to exile: Matagalpa and Estelí (Bishop Rolando Álvarez, in Rome), Siuna (Bishop Isidoro Mora), and Jinotega (Bishop Carlos Herrera, in Guatemala). In these dioceses, there were no chrism Masses and no official public processions, though the faithful organized activities “with the creativity of the people of God.”

Bishop Rolando Álvarez, formerly imprisoned by the Ortega regime, participated in Vatican Holy Week ceremonies alongside Pope Leo XIV.

In Managua, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes reported receiving images from bishops across Nicaragua showing “the level of participation in their cathedrals, as well as in their parishes.” He credited priests’ work and the people’s generosity, stating the faithful “have been able to come to their churches and are living out their faith, which, I believe, is the most important thing.”

Cardinal Brenes led a four-hour Stations of the Cross at Managua Cathedral on Good Friday that drew thousands to the cathedral grounds.

Exiled Auxiliary Bishop Silvio Báez of Managua, celebrating Easter Sunday in Miami, reflected in his homily: “By raising the Crucified One from the dead, God reveals not only the triumph of his power over the destructive power of death but also the victory of his justice over the injustices of men.” He challenged worshippers: “In the presence of the risen Lord, we must ask ourselves whose side we are on: that of those who crucify, or that of the crucified?”