Filipino devotees celebrate as the image of Black Nazarene enters a church to end a 20-hour procession in Manila on January 10. Two people died as more than a million barefoot devotees joined the Philippines largest religious procession, honouring a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ on Saturday, officials said. The feast of the Black Nazarene is one of the most celebrated religious events in the predominantly Catholic Philippines, Where more than 80 per cent of the population professes the faith.The wooden statue, crowned with thorns and bearing a cross, is believed to have been brought from Mexico to Manila in 1606 by Spanish missionaries. The ship that carried it caught fire, but the charred statue survived and was named the Black Nazarene.