ENTRE LA REPRESION Y LA TOLERANCIA. EL PROTESTANTISMO Y LAS SECTAS EN MÁLAGA DURANTE LA EPOCA DE FRANCO (1937-1967)

Abstract

The study of Christian religious minorities in contemporary Spain, a subject which has already been briefly explored by others authors, is extended in this work with an overall view of Catholicism in Malaga and province in Franco’s time up to the passing of the Law of Religious Freedom in 1967. Starting off with the state and activities of the Evangelical churches in the years of the 2nd Republic of Spain, the study continues to describe the impact of the Spanish Civil War and the immediate post-war years on these churches, with the closing of Evangelical chapels and schools together with the unleashed persecution of some of the leaders such as Father Claudio Gutiérrez Marín or the primary school teacher, Juan Pedro Roldán Rodríguez, and with police control of the faithful. After a clandestine period (1940-1946), the Evangelical chapels in Malaga were once again opened in an atmosphere of tolerance encouraged by changes in the Spanish law. The 1950’s of Protestantism in Malaga were marked by the reuniting of the faithful, the opening and consolidation of several places of worship in Malaga and some surrounding towns (Benagalbón, Coín and Ronda) with the accompanying increase in the number of followers while high tension coexisted with the strict government control as well as with difficulties on celebrating weddings and funerals. Finally, the 1960’s, with the advent of international tourism and with the changes in attitude of the Catholic Church, were marked by the founding of a number of Evangelical centres –which even led to the fragmentation of the movement– as well as by a degree of permissiveness on the part of the government authorities accompanied by a division of the local Protestan churches at the time they were taken under the umbrella of the 1967 Law of Religious Freedom. In the whole of the period studied, the work of two priests of the Spanish Evangelical Church in Málaga, José Pimentel Vega and Benjamín Heras stood out most. Also of great significance for this period was the increasing importance or the Assembly of God in the town of Ronda under the guidance of the priests Román Perruc Torres and Roy Leslie Dalton –not to mention that of the local and provincial Evangelical nuclei such as the Evangelical Christian Church of the Brotherhood and the Church of Christ in Coín. The work finally concludes with an analysis of the first attempt of the Jehovah’s Witnesses to establish their presence in Málaga and the consequent police repression of the same en 1962.