By María Luz Mangado Alonso and Amándio Teixeira-Pinto

 

Spain often appears to have been a latecomer to the Middle East. In fact, Spanish pilgrimages and visits to biblical places have been ongoing since the first centuries of Christianity. A particularly rich literature has been preserved since the mid-19th and 20th centuries, which tells of growing interest in pilgrimages and missionizing from across the Spanish Empire.

Pilgrimages to the Holy Land were born with Christianity itself. The late 4th century CE Iberian noblewoman Egeria was among the first pilgrims to write a detailed account of her trip. But it was only during the 19th century that the possibility emerged for mass organized trips for pilgrims to explore the places of Jesus’ life. These were done with the blessings of Spanish bishops and the support of journalists.

One early pilgrimage was organized to the holy places in 1885, presided over by Don Domingo Cortés, canon of the Holy Cathedral Basilica of Barcelona. The cost was 180 duros, the equivalent of about $4400 US dollars today. In 1889 the Diocese of Oviedo organized another pilgrimage to the holy places in which 58 pilgrims and 44 crew members participated.

But interest in pilgrimages continued to expand thanks to the effort of national religious authorities. The Pious Union of Saint Michael the Archangel, established in Barcelona, Mallorca, Valencia and Menorca, enthusiastically summoned a national pilgrimage in 1890 that was announced in its Ecclesial Bulletins: “In Rome we shall visit the Augustus, prisoner of the Vatican, we shall bring some consolation to his heart, greatly afflicted by the terrible persecution of which he is the target.”Some 104 passengers from Catalonia, Aragón, Castilla, Vizcaya, Navarra, Galicia, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Cuba and Mexico participated, and sketches of the journey were presented in “The General Spanish Pilgrimage to the Holy Places.” And in 1893, a Eucharistic Congress was celebrated in Jerusalem, in which all the Eastern bishops participated.

Another aspect in the relationship of Spain with the holy places was the creation of the College of Missionaries of Santiago de Compostela, opened in 1856 by order of Queen Isabel II, and whose missionaries were mainly destined for Morocco and the Holy Land. Its first expedition departed in 1859, and from its increasing number of schools many devout went out to the Holy Land, facilitating the great pilgrimages that were organized in the later 19th and 20th centuries. Missionizing went hand in hand with pilgrimages.

At the beginning of the 20th century, regular pilgrimages from Spain to the Holy Land were launched–but with participants from the entire Spanish-speaking world. The first, in 1902, organized by José María Urquijo of Bilbao, who assumed the presidency of the Pilgrimage Board, passed through Malta to Jerusalem and returned through Egypt, Naples and Rome.

José Maria Urquijo Ybarra. All images courtesy of the authors.

 

The growing importance of the Pilgrimage Board was demonstrated in 1901, when Pope Leo XIII issued an apostolic brief that granted to Bilbao pilgrimage the same privileges enjoyed by the global Assumptionist congregation of Catholic priests.

Pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square, Vatican 1902.

 

Pilgrim’s medal awarded by Pope Leo XIII.

 

The pilgrimages were all-encompassing religious experiences. A 1902 trip began on Holy Saturday at the basilica at Begoña, with a service that concluded two days later. The 229 pilgrims then traveled by train to Barcelona, accompanied by ranking bishops. With the blessing of Cardinal Salvador Casañas, Bishop of Barcelona, the ship Midnight Sun headed to Malta and then to Palestine to start an extensive visit to the holy places.

 

The Midnight Sun.

 

The group visited Haifa, Mount Carmel, Caná, Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, Magdala, and Capernaum. They then traveled to Mount Tabor and Jerusalem, and next visited the Mount of Olives, Jericho, the Jordan River, and the Dead Sea, ending up in Bethlehem. After touring the Holy Land they went to Egypt, which included a visit to Ismaelía, the pyramids, Matariya and the Route of the Holy Family, Heliopolis, and Alexandria.

Stereoscope photo of Matariya, the Route of the Holy Family.

 

From there they left for Naples and Rome, where the pilgrims were received by Cardinal Vives and later by Pope Leo XIII. After a month of travel the exhausted pilgrims arrived back in Barcelona. But the pilgrimage continued even after their return to Spain, with a stop in Zaragoza to visit the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar, and then back to Begoña for a celebration of Mass.

After the success of this first expedition, José María Urquijo asked the Pope to name a Permanent Organizing Committee for Pilgrimages. The Board had the support of the entire Spanish episcopate, and national pilgrimages were undertaken almost every year from 1902 until the outbreak of World War I.

Pilgrim’s Certificate 1911.

 

The national pilgrimages greatly standardized the experience for the many thousands of participants. Ships always left and returned to Barcelona. Pilgrims were instructed to always arrive the day before departure in order to be briefed. The itinerary itself varied according to the year: pilgrims would visit emblematic places in the Holy Land associated with the life of Jesus, travel through Egypt from Port Said or Alexandria to see the pyramids, the Sphinx, or the Route of the Holy Family, and continue to Naples with visits to Pompeii and Rome. In some years the itinerary included Constantinople, Malta, Cyprus, and Greece. The duration of the journey varied between one and a half to two months.

The pilgrimages served not only the spiritual needs of the travelers but a broader national religious purpose. Beginning in 1908 ships included a telegraph and a Catholic journalist, paid by the board to send reports to the media. Chronicles, lectures and books about each trip were published, which give us an idea of the importance and social impact that they achieved in Spanish-speaking society across different hemispheres. News reports in periodicals and magazines were abundant and detailed, in which the pilgrims expounded on their experiences and adventures. Some pamphlets and texts were illustrated with engravings that fixed the image of Palestinian geography and local religious sites in the minds of Spanish readers.

While Spain remained neutral in World War I, the conflict ended the era of mass pilgrimages. After the end of the war, interest in the Holy Land developed further with the discovery of the tomb of Tut-Ankh-Ámon in Egypt and after 1924, all itineraries included a trip through Egypt to the Valley of the Kings and the Pyramids. The journey came to combine religion and devotion through the Holy Land with the new ways of experiencing Middle Eastern culture and adventure. Trips were organized from 1925 until the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. But with the turmoil in Spanish and European society during the middle decades of the 20th century, Spanish interest in The Holy Land would not be recovered for decades.

 

María Luz Mangado Alonso teaches in the Department of Ancient Orient-Faculty of Theology of Vitoria and is a researcher at the Spanish Institute for Bible and Archaeology of Jerusalem.

Amándio Teixeira-Pinto is on the faculty of Tundavala University.