The patroness of Scicli is the Madonna delle Milizie, celebrated on the last Saturday of May. Scicli's definitive passage to Norman rule is traced to 1091, under Roger of Hauteville, whose army is said to have fought a decisive battle in the Piana dei Milici against the Saracens led by an emir named Belcane: according to legend, the final battle was won by the Christians through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, who came down to help on a white horse armed with a sabre to defend the city, «mea civitas dilecta». The battle is commemorated every year with the Festa delle Milizie, one of the main religious-folkloric attractions of Scicli, and at the sanctuary and hermitage of the Madonna delle Milizie, outside the city in the district of Giammarito, reopened to the public in 2025 after restoration.
The city's co-patron is Blessed Guglielmo Buccheri, venerated in the mother church dedicated to him, once named after Saint Ignatius of Loyola: of the 18th-century building, the monumental portal, with fluted columns and Ionic capitals, and traces of frescoes in the apse survive today, including a veiled Madonna and a figure identifiable with the blessed himself. Beneath the church lies a crypt, once decorated with paintings, connected by a stepped passage carved into the rock; the route of the procession of San Guglielmo was established by the bishop of Syracuse, Francesco Fortezza, in 1684.
