🌽Dates

Brazilian Junina Festas Dates

Show Brazilian Junina festas dates for a year and weekday of each.

Ano

The June festival dates and why they are fixed

The three dates do not move: Saint Anthony on 13 June, Saint John on the 24th and Saint Peter on the 29th. Unlike Carnival and Corpus Christi, which depend on Easter, these are fixed in the calendar — all that changes from year to year is the weekday they land on, and that is what the page reports.

The weekday is no detail: a quadrilha dance, a novena or a trip inland all get organised around whether the saint's day falls at the weekend. The concentration of festivals on these days predates Christianity, in the European celebrations of the northern summer solstice, which the Church absorbed by fixing saints' feasts in the same stretch of the year.

Choosing 24 June for Saint John follows a curious internal logic. The Church celebrates John the Baptist's birth rather than his death, which is rare in the calendar of saints. The date comes from the Gospel of Luke, where the angel visits Mary in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy — six months before Christmas, which puts John's birth at the end of June.

Frequently asked questions

Why the bonfire?

The solstice bonfire predates Christianity and survived attached to Saint John. Brazilian popular tradition added an explanation of its own: Elizabeth is said to have lit a fire to tell Mary of the birth. The two readings coexist without conflict in how the festivals are actually kept.

Which is Brazil's largest June festival?

Campina Grande in Paraíba and Caruaru in Pernambuco have disputed the title of the world's largest São João for decades, each with its own figures. Both stretch the festival across the whole of June, well beyond the three saints' days, which in practice makes the argument unresolvable.

Is Saint Anthony's day a holiday?

Not a national one, but it is a municipal holiday in many towns where he is the patron saint, and the same goes for Saint John and Saint Peter. Anyone needing this for a work roster has to check the municipal statute, because the national calendar does not include them.

Related Tools

🎉

Brazilian Folk Festivals

Calendar of Brazil's main folk festivals.

🌅

Shortest Night of the Year

Summer solstice in each hemisphere.

🌃

Longest Night of the Year

Winter solstice in each hemisphere.

🌍

Ethiopian Calendar Converter

Convert a Gregorian date to the Ethiopian (Ge'ez) calendar, which has 13 months and runs about 7 to 8 years behind. Useful for travel and study.

✡️

Hebrew Calendar Converter

Convert a Gregorian date to the Hebrew (Jewish) calendar. Useful for religious holidays, bar mitzvahs, anniversaries and dates in Judaism.

🎌

Japanese Calendar Date (Wareki)

Convert a full Gregorian date to the Japanese calendar, with the right era — Meiji, Taisho, Showa, Heisei or Reiwa — the year within that era and the Japanese spelling.