DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — At the first Way of the Cross Over the Brooklyn Bridge Good Friday procession in 1996 only about 30 people participated, and they were only allowed to go halfway across the bridge due to a lack of permits. 

This year, several hundred people are expected to fill the bridge on Good Friday, April 18, to mark a historic milestone. This crossing will be the first joint procession sponsored by Roman Catholics and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

Jonathan Fields, who carried the cross during that first procession in 1996, said this dual participation commemorates the rare occurrence of Easter set for April 20 on the calendars of both rites.

Realizing this, Cardinal Timothy Dolan suggested the invitation to Archbishop Elpidophoros, the leader of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Fields said.

“We just ran with it,” said Fields, who is the music director at the Basilica of Regina Pacis in Dyker Heights. “It’s kind of a different year for us, affirming this unity, given how much disunity is going around.”

He is also a charter member of the New York City chapter of the Catholic lay movement, Communion and Liberation (CL), which organizes the procession each year.

“Communion and Liberation is a friendship in Christ,” Fields said. “(It) helps us to live our faith in daily life, to look for Christ in our normal daily lives, not just on weekends.”

The CL movement was founded in the 1950s near Milan, Italy. Some 30 years later, Cardinal John O’Connor of New York was so impressed with it that he invited it to expand into his archdiocese, Fields said.

Working to make that happen were then-Bishop Thomas Vose Daily of Brooklyn and a parish priest, then-Father Ronald Marino who retired two years ago as a monsignor and the pastor of Regina Pacis.

Fields, 68, said he converted to Catholicism from Judaism at age 24. He then “hungered” for an organization like CL, so he joined when it came to New York. He said he met his wife through the organization, and others who are his friends to this day.

“That’s why I loved it and stayed with it,” he said.

The idea for a Good Friday procession across the bridge was inspired by CL’s founder, Father Luigi Giussani, who visited New York before his death at 82 in 2005. Fields said Father Giussani had always admired the Brooklyn Bridge for its gothic arches and towers, but noted how “the only thing missing was a cross.” 

In the late 1990s, the first Good Friday procession over the bridge began to take shape. 

“We thought, ‘Well, why don’t we do it really publicly, and try it over the Brooklyn Bridge, and put the cross in front of the arches?’ ” Fields said. “Father Giussani would be really happy, we thought.”

The first procession was held in 1996, and presented a significant learning curve.

“We thought maybe it was going to be too noisy, that we wouldn’t be able to pray,” Fields said, adding, however, that the trek across the bridge, with stops for the stations of the cross, was remarkably serene. 

“It worked out because it’s not that noisy on the bridge,” he said.

The procession grew tremendously the following year when organizers got the appropriate permits to enter Manhattan and also requested media attention. The event was reported by news organizations throughout the world.

“It’s funny, Father Giussani saw it on TV in Italy,” Fields said. “He called us and said he was very excited seeing the cross with the arches. Then it just grew from there.”

Fields carried the cross each year until 2000. He ended the 24-year hiatus by taking a turn with it last year. Meanwhile, the annual procession kept growing. In 2002, some 3,000 New Yorkers followed the Way of the Cross to the site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks at The World Trade Center.

The jaunt returns to “Ground Zero” this year because its terminus was St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox National Shrine near the World Trade Center. 

Various spots in Manhattan have served as the terminus, but the procession always started from the Cathedral Basilica of St. James in Downtown Brooklyn.

Bishop Robert Brennan has marched in the procession each year since he was installed in 2021. He has also led processors in prayer at the Stations of the Cross on the bridge.

“This year we’re emphasizing hope because it’s the Jubilee Year,” Fields said, referring to Pope Francis’ requested theme, “Pilgrims of Hope.”

“We’re also emphasizing unity this year,” he added, “because we’re doing it with the Orthodox Christians.”