Related articles and links |  1 of 6

In September 1559, Don Juan Ponce de Leon was led around the Plaza San Francisco in Seville, Spain, to take his place upon the platform where the Inquisitors would hear his confession. The public spectacles known as the autos da fe ("acts of faith") attracted huge crowds that came to witness the fate of those indicted for heresy. Don Juan, according to the documents of that time, had spent two years in prison for being "a damned Lutheran."

Don Juan said: "I wish to God that I had an income of 20,000 ducats and could use them to spread our faith all over Spain so that people might be enlightened to become Christians and know their faith." For this, "Don Juan was sentenced to die at the stake."

While Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli changed the face of Europe, the Spanish crown refused to give ground to the "Protestant Revolt." The country held out as the last bastion of Catholicism and ruthlessly guarded the faith. Emperor Charles V, the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabela (of Christopher Columbus fame), issued this decree in 1550:

No one, whatsoever his rank or condition, shall print, transcribe, copy, or knowingly have by him, receive, carry, keep, conceal, have in his possession, sell, buy, give, distribute, scatter, or let fall in churches, or on the street, or in other places, any books or writing composed by Martin Luther, Johann Oecolampadius, Huldreich Zwingli, Martin Bucer, John Calvin, or other heretics.

Despite the opposition, Juan de Valdez and Francisco de San Roman, most notably, could be considered Spanish "Reformers" who attempted to advance Protestantism. But the former was exiled in Italy while the latter was burned at the stake in Valladolid in 1540.

Today the continent that spawned the Reformation is considered "truly post-Christian," according to Patrick Johnson in Operation World. Evangelicals in Europe, he says, exist as an "irrelevant" Christian remnant. One salient point where the movement of God contradicts this assessment, he notes, is in "the turning of the Gypsy people to Christ." This is especially notable in Spain, which is in the midst of a cultural renaissance that has enabled Protestantism to take root and spring to life for the first time in the country's history. And one of the fastest-growing expressions of Protestantism in Spain arises from the Gypsy churches.

One wonders how, in the land of los conquistadores ("the conquerors") and Don Quijote, this disenfranchised reviled minority has become the catalyst for this surprising movement of God.

It has been long in coming, but recent religious freedoms in Spain have set the stage for a revival in Protestantism generally, and the Gypsy church movement particularly, after a tortured and convoluted history of religious repression. The political and religious consolidation of Spain under the Catholic church was initiated by Ferdinand and Isabela, los reyes catolicos ("the Catholic royals"), and heralded what was to become "the golden era" (for Spain, anyway) of their world domination, which was climaxed under their grandson, Charles V. Spain's glory was short-lived, however, as the country soon devolved into social and political chaos. From the sixteenth century to the late twentieth, the Spanish people had no voice as they endured centuries of political instability, monarchical madness, brutality, civil war, and repression.

When the dictator Francisco Franco died in 1975 and King Juan Carlos assumed the throne, he surprised everyone when he overturned Franco's despotic model of government and moved the country into a democratic system. By 1978 Spain had a new constitution and was formally recognized as a constitutional monarchy with a democratic political system.

next page... |  1 of 6

share this page

February 8 1999, Vol. 43, No. 2