Etymologically, the word “Protestant”, first used in 1529 during the Diet of Speyer, originates from “protestatio” (from the Latin pro testare: to testify in favor of), which in the sixteenth-century legal vocabulary meant making a public and imperative declaration by which, invoking a prior right, the complainant opposed a new law.
This was the sense given to the attitude of the early Protestants who, rejecting the relaxation of morals, hierarchical corruption, and the distorted traditions of the Church of Rome, asserted the right of the faithful to return to a more internalized and individual religion.
From 1600 to the present day, the word “Protestant” has taken on a slightly different meaning and has been used to denote an attitude of protest, more or less belligerent, against Roman Catholicism.
Much ink has been spilled in attempts to explain the possible causes that, in the sixteenth century, led to the rupture part of Christendom and the Papacy.
For several centuries, the prevailing thesis attributed the schism to the abuses and corruption of the Church. Later, Marxist theory emphasized economic motivations as one of the main causes of the Reformation. Today it is clear that the reality was far more complex and that the fracture of Christendom had been taking shape long before.
It was the response of a more urbanized and more secular society, emerging from an era of adversity in which it seemed that the world was coming to an end. From the moment the papacy was transferred to Avignon in 1309, apocalyptic expectations took hold of Christendom. The Hundred Years’ War, in grim combination with the Black Death, had wiped out nearly two-thirds of Europe’s population, while the Turkish threat grew increasingly menacing in the Mediterranean and infidel forces attacked the eastern frontier of the Holy Roman Empire.
In this atmosphere of panic, humanity felt overwhelmed by the weight of its sins. Such calamities could only be interpreted as divine punishment. In order to obtain God’s mercy and attain eternal salvation, people had two options: to acquire merit through their actions — prayers, good works, and indulgences — or to embrace the doctrine of justification by faith, according to which, despite original sin, God is a Father before He is a Judge and, through the sacrifice of His Son, promised salvation to humankind.
For Christian masses terrified by the idea that their own wickedness might condemn them to eternal fire, the theological doctrine of justification by faith rather than by works was deeply reassuring. The new believers of the late fifteenth century, thanks to declining illiteracy and the invention of the printing press, were able to read the Gospels for themselves. This freed them from clerical mediation and allowed them to rely less on sacramental practice, since the Word of God was revealed to each individual through personal interpretation of Scripture. This development profoundly unsettled the Church of Rome, which saw its monopoly endangered.
The immediate trigger of the rupture occurred in Germany, which, according to authoritative opinions, was at that time the most Christian country in Western Europe. Every year, the pope sent teams of preachers throughout Europe to sell indulgence bulls to the faithful. In exchange for money, the Supreme Pontiff granted portions of the accumulated merits of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints, enabling Christians to benefit from them in their arduous pursuit of salvation.
The indulgence trade had become a business of enormous proportions. Rome required ever-increasing amounts of money, especially since the popes had begun construction of the majestic — and extremely costly — Basilica of St. Peter. Many Christians were deeply scandalized.
On 31 October 1517, Martin Luther, a thirty-two-year-old Augustinian monk who from an early age had felt an unusual fascination with the Bible, sent ninety-five theses against indulgences to the Archbishop of Mainz, the highest ecclesiastical authority in Germany. The printing press spread the text throughout the country, and its success was overwhelming. Luther was summoned to Rome by the pope but refused to go. New writings, which already constituted a coherent reform program, flowed from his inexhaustible pen.
Alarmed by the unexpected turn of events, Emperor Charles V ordered Luther’s works to be burned. Shortly thereafter, Luther himself gathered papal bulls and theological books and consigned them to the flames. With this act, the rupture of Christendom took tangible form. Charles V convened the Imperial Diet at Worms during the winter of 1520 in a desperate attempt to halt the reformist momentum. But it was already too late, and with unprecedented speed the Protestant movement spread across Europe.
Germany — except for its southern regions — Switzerland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, England, Scotland, and the southwest and central regions of France were the areas in which the Reformation triumphed. Southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, and Italy), northern France, Belgium, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland remained loyal to the pope.
Reformist leaders emerged everywhere. Most agreed on the essentials: the Church required profound reform, though they differed on how to achieve it. There also arose a radical Protestantism that was not satisfied with reforming the Church but instead preached its destruction in order to rebuild it from the ground up. These millenarian and communal sects clashed both with one another and with other confessions. The wars of religion, with their inevitable toll of death and destruction, convulsed Europe and made clear the failure of a unified Reformation of Christendom.
During an initial phase, the Reformation in France took shape around two main axes: the evangelism of the Meaux group and Lutheranism. Later, Calvinism emerged and, by absorbing the other currents, spread throughout the kingdom.
French Protestants were known as Huguenots, a term which, according to some scholars, derives from the German Eidgenossen, meaning “confederates,” while others believe it comes from the name Hugo, since the first reformers in Paris gathered near the statue of Hugh Capet.
When Luther’s ideas began to reach France, the Meaux circle had already been formed, so called because it was based in that town near Paris. This movement also sought the reform of the Church and revolved around two committed figures: Guillaume Briçonnet, bishop of Meaux and abbot of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and his vicar general Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, an outstanding philologist and expert in classical languages. Through their efforts, the Meaux group aimed to make the Holy Scriptures accessible to both clergy and laity so as to deepen their understanding of the truths of the faith. To this end, they began translating the Old Testament into French.
In 1521, an extraordinary woman, Margaret of Angoulême, sister of King Francis I of France, went to Meaux in order to be closer to her husband, the Duke of Alençon, who was fighting the Imperial forces at Mézières. There she came into contact with Bishop Briçonnet and his circle and began studying Neoplatonic symbolism through a reinterpretation of Scripture. A lasting friendship developed Margaret and Briçonnet.
The Duke of Alençon died in April 1515 as a result of wounds received at the Battle of Pavia, and two years later Margaret remarried Henry II of Albret, Count of Béarn and rightful King of Navarre, known as “the Bloodthirsty.” Through his marriage to the sister of the French king, Henry hoped to recover his kingdom.
Margaret’s departure for Nérac, the seat of the court of her new domains, had disastrous consequences not only for the Meaux circle but for all reformist currents. Deprived of his sister’s beneficial influence, Francis I gradually abandoned his policy of tolerance. A series of royal measures empowered regional parliaments to repress the crime of heresy. In 1525, the Parliament of Bordeaux, relying on a report by the powerful Sorbonne, initiated proceedings against Briçonnet; the following year, all French translations of the Bible were banned. Anti-reformist fanaticism intensified.
The violence unleashed in Germany during the Peasants’ Wars, marked by unprecedented cruelty, convinced Francis I that a hard line was necessary against the Huguenots. Throughout France, bonfires began to burn. Margaret’s territories became a refuge for all those deemed “deviant in matters of faith.” Briçonnet, Lefèvre d’Étaples, Clément Marot, and other reformers settled in Nérac.
In 1530, the Sorbonne sought to condemn Margaret’s literary work The Mirror of the Sinful Soul as Lutheran. Francis I intervened and the trial did not proceed, but the small court of Navarre began to be regarded as the southernmost center of the Reformation. In 1534, Calvin, who had already been corresponding with Margaret, traveled to Nérac to meet her. They held different views on the Reformation: the queen favored reconciling reformist currents with Roman Catholicism, whereas Calvin advocated rupture. Upon returning from Nérac, he renounced his ecclesiastical benefices and broke with Rome.
At that time, the future great reformer was organizing evangelical communities throughout France, and the Navarrese states provided an ideal springboard for promoting Protestant ideology in Catholic Spain. Calvin wished to continue his relationship with Margaret, whose pro-reform sympathies were tolerated by her brother, increasingly radicalized against the Huguenots. Over time, however, their relationship cooled, possibly, as historian Jon Oria suggests, because of Margaret’s protection in Nérac of the leaders of a mystical sect, the Spiritual Libertines, expelled from Geneva by Calvin for sexual misconduct.
Margaret’s tolerance prevented her from drawing distinctions, and all those proscribed for reasons of faith found refuge in her small kingdom. While The Mirror of the Sinful Soul, an extraordinarily difficult work to interpret, was deemed heretical by the Sorbonne, her most famous literary creation, The Heptameron, better symbolizes her outlook on life. Torrential rains isolate a group of travelers returning from Pyrenean baths, and in their refuge they tell stories to ease their isolation. Likewise, amid a Europe bloodied by religious wars, Margaret’s Pyrenean states could be compared to a small oasis, prompting one refugee to exclaim: “This exile is sweeter than honey.”
Although the confessor of the Queen of Navarre, Gérard Roussel, bishop of Oloron, has been regarded as one of the earliest apostles of the Reformed faith in Iparralde, Margaret never officially broke with Catholicism. Her stance toward the Reformation was comparable to that of Erasmus of Rotterdam, with whom she corresponded. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that during her reign the evangelical groups sheltered in Nérac actively proselytized throughout Iparralde, especially in Labourd, at times even crossing the boundary with the Spanish monarchy.
Six years after Margaret’s death, in 1555, her husband, Henry II “the Bloodthirsty”, passed away. The heir to his realms was Joan, their only daughter, born in 1529.
By the will of her uncle, Francis I, Joan had been married to the Duke of Cleves in 1540. Only twelve years old and confronting everyone, she ed and obtained a papal annulment of the forced marriage, and subsequently married Antoine of Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme. Although she has been attributed early reformist sympathies due to her education by Protestant-leaning tutors, the truth is that just four days after her coronation in 1555, Joan of Albret, at the of her states, issued a series of laws aimed at “eradicating and expelling from her Countries, Lands, and Lordships all heretical sects for the preservation of the Catholic faith.”
However, soon Joan began to be influenced by the Reformed faith. 1555 and 1557, clergymen with clear Protestant tendencies preached freely in the churches of her realms. Pierre David, in Agen, proclaimed the Gospel from the pulpit, but was excommunicated by the Bishop of Bordeaux. Upon leaving the diocese, he took refuge in Béarn, where Antoine of Bourbon protected him and appointed him official preacher of the House of Navarre. This is considered the first “official” act of adherence to the Reformation by the Navarrese sovereigns, who for several years maintained an ambiguous stance, oscillating repressive measures against the Huguenots and symbolic acts of tolerance toward the Reformed faith. By 1558, all dioceses in their territories were occupied by prelates inclined to leniency, some even favorably disposed toward Protestants.
In January 1558, while passing through La Rochelle on their way to Paris to attend the Dauphin’s marriage to Mary Stuart, the Navarrese sovereigns attended a Reformed service led by their preacher, Pierre David. This scandalized the French king, Henry II, who threatened to send an army under the Duke of Guise and devastate their lands for heresy. Fearing a French reaction, Joan of Albret took measures against the Protestants again. However, Antoine of Bourbon increasingly aligned with the Reformed, and on March 23, 1559, Easter Sunday, he participated in a Reformed service, thereby confirming his adhesion to the Reformation.
Two years later, following the advice of her chancellor Amaury Bouchard and the Prince of Condé, then in Nérac, she summoned the Huguenot theologian Theodore Beza from Geneva. The queen was influenced by Beza, and her spiritual resistance to abandoning Catholicism gradually subsided. Finally, on Christmas Eve 1560, during a Reformed service in Pau, Joan of Albret formally abjured Catholicism and joined the Reformation.
Antoine of Bourbon, driven by personal ambition, then engaged in schemes to, with support from Philip II, depose his wife from the kingdom for heresy and become the legitimate King of Navarre himself. Of course, he would first have to return to the Catholic fold, which did not seem a major obstacle, but he died in 1562 during the siege of Rouen.
Meanwhile, the Reformed faith spread across Béarn and Lower Navarre. In January 1563, Queen Joan wrote to the Consistory of Geneva ing “excellent persons who, with integrity of religion, piety, and good morals, are also endowed with knowledge, experience, and ability for the Council, administration of justice, and oversight of the churches.” The letter was personally delivered to Calvin by Enecot d’Esponda, Joan III’s secretary.
A group of Navarrese and Béarnais already studying in Geneva – Carrière, Clavel, Gaillard, Martel, and Rostolon – were the first pastors sent by Calvin to fulfill the queen’s . On this basis, the First Synod of Pau was convened on March 14, 1563, which can be considered the origin of the Protestant ecclesiastical reorganization in the states of Joan of Albret.
Aware of the importance of the Holy Scriptures, since for the ideologues of the Reformation they contained the “Revealed Truth,” Joan of Albret recognized the need to translate them into Basque, the language spoken by a large part of her subjects, so that they could access the “Word of God.” At the Second Synod of Pau, in September 1563, Joannes de Leizarraga (or Liçarrague) was entrusted with translating the New Testament into Basque.
Leizarraga was born around 1506 in the small village of Briscous (Berascoitze) in Labourd. Very little is known about his life. He was already a priest, though the place of his ordination is unknown. Due to his pro-Reformation ideas, he had to flee Labourd and take refuge in the states of Joan of Albret. A remarkable philologist, Leizarraga knew, in addition to Basque, French, Castilian, Latin, and Greek. In 1567, he was assigned to the church of Labastida, where he served as pastor until his death, probably in 1601.
Leizarraga was able to overcome the innumerable obstacles posed by the Basque language, with its countless dialectical variations, and standardize it, just as Luther had done with German, which suffered from the same problem. The Labourdine dialect was used as the linguistic base, but the work also includes idiomatic forms from other regions, as well as inevitable Latin and Greek borrowings according to the scholarly conventions of the time.
Leizarraga was not alone in this task; he had a team of four collaborators, experts in different Basque dialects. Their names are known: Sanz de Tartas, Joan de Etcheverry, Pierres de Landetcheverry, and Tardets.
Leizarraga’s Basque New Testament was published in 1571 at the printing press of Pierre Hutin in La Rochelle. Other important Reformation works were printed at the same press, many of which were lost during the Wars of Religion. Leizarraga dedicated his work to Joan of Albret, which led some authors to claim that the queen had personally funded the publication. However, according to the acts of the 1567 Synod of Pau, the work was subsidized by the Ecclesiastical Council administering her states, though it is undeniable that Joan of Albret took a personal interest in making the Scriptures accessible to all her subjects. Through her mediation, Arnaud de la Salette was entrusted with translating the Psalms, as well as Calvin’s Catechism, into Béarnese.
At the of John Calvin, and on the orders of Joan of Albret, Jean Raymond Marlin, one of his most faithful collaborators, was sent to Pau. The queen entrusted him with the task of reorganizing the church in her states to introduce the Reformed worship.
Marlin, a Hebrew professor, had a violent and impetuous personality, driven by intense religious zeal tinged with fanaticism. He demanded rapid results and drew Joan of Albret into his furious pace. In June 1563, under Marlin’s influence, the queen issued a series of very unpopular measures, including the suppression of Corpus Christi processions. A month later, following Protestant liturgical canons, she ordered the removal of all statues and images of saints from the Lescar cathedral.
In September, a new synod was convened in Pau, presided over by Marlin. In addition to ecclesiastical discipline issues, it reiterated that all idolatry must be abolished in the country.
Faced with public outrage, the iconoclastic process continued. That same month, Pope Pius IV issued a brief granting the queen six months to appear in Rome before the Holy Office, otherwise she would be d unfit to retain the Kingdom of Navarre and the principality of any state or domain. This could have allowed another Catholic prince (with Philip II nearby) to seize Joan’s states due to her heresy. The queen ignored this threat.
In 1565, an Ecclesiastical Council was established, composed of twelve members meeting periodically, under the presidency of the queen or her delegate at the Pau castle. Its mission was to manage church assets and oversee congregational affairs. Over time, it became the supreme governing body of the Reformed clergy.
Joan spent much time at the French court arranging her children’s marriages and attending to family politics. Upon her return, her zeal for the Reformation intensified, and she issued a new set of strict ordinances, severely restricting Catholic freedom and displeasing most Protestants.
By royal decree:
- Sale of cards and dice prohibited
- Public dances regulated
- Prostitution and begging banned
- Public processions, carrying crosses, banners, and religious garments forbidden outside convents
- Remaining images and other “signs of idolatry” removed immediately
- Ministers’ salaries set at 300 dineros or liberak for married, 200 for single, with free housing
The first popular uprising occurred in February 1567 in Nérac, as locals tried to stop the destruction of images. Rebels sought help from France and plotted to overthrow the queen, but a denunciation thwarted the plan.
In 1568, the enforcement of Ecclesiastical Ordinances in Lower Navarre and Soule provoked a new rebellion, led by the Duke of Luxe, joined by some nobles. The second of the eight bloody French Wars of Religion raged, and rebels appealed to King Charles IX, who had issued the Edict of Saint-Maur recognizing only Catholicism. He could not intervene due to other conflicts.
Joan imprudently went to La Rochelle with her son Henri to attend a Protestant gathering. Charles IX used this as a pretext to seize her French possessions. On October 15, the Toulouse parliament d the states of Bigorre, Béarn, and Lower Navarre under royal protection.
In January 1569, an anti-Protestant revolt erupted in the County of Foix. The situation worsened with the assassination in March of Prince of Condé, leader of the Huguenot party. With the king’s consent, an army led by the Duke of Luxe occupied Béarn and Lower Navarre.
The war spread throughout Joan’s states. Populace and rebellious nobility united. Efforts to remove saints’ images, deeply embedded in local beliefs, triggered violent confrontations.
To restore authority, Joan called on Gabriel de Lorges, Count of Montgomery, a mercenary of Henry II’s Scottish guard. On July 10, 1569, he was appointed commander-in-chief. Joan sold her jewels to fund the army. In fifteen days, Montgomery restored her sovereignty, pillaging everything, desecrating royal tombs at Lescar, and burning saints’ relics. Catholic massacres multiplied.
On January 28, 1570, a royal decree of 19 articles officially banned Catholic worship. Many priests fled to Aragon and Upper Navarre or were forced to apostatize. In April 1571, Joan returned to La Rochelle with her son Henri for the General Synod of Reformed Churches of France, presided by Theodore Beza. Back in Pau, she convened a new synod in October 1571, personally supervising the conclusions.
France’s regent, Catherine de Médicis, conspired with her son Charles IX and the powerful Guise family to marry her daughter Marguerite to the future King of Navarre, Henri. Joan agreed. The marriage contract was signed on April 11, 1572, in Blois, and the wedding took place on August 18 at Notre-Dame de Paris, with the blessing on a stage before the portal. Parisians disapproved, and preachers incited hatred against Protestants.
Four days later, Admiral Coligny, moderately pro-Protestant, was assassinated by the Guise. Catherine then decided to eradicate the Huguenot minority. On August 23, St. Bartholomew’s Day, Paris’s gates were closed, and the massacre began, lasting three days, killing nearly 3,000 Huguenots. The massacre spread to other regions. In Bayonne, Governor Adrian de Aspremont refused to ute the order, stating he could not find a single utioner among his citizens.
Since his marriage to Marguerite de Valois, Henry III of Navarre lived as a semi-age at the French court. Terrified by the events of the St. Bartholomew’s Night, he soon abjured his faith and issued an edict restoring Roman Catholicism in his states.
In response, the Council of the Kingdom of Navarre assumed power, opposing the orders coming from Paris. The king convened the General States of Navarre and Béarn on December 21, 1572, and tasked the Lord of Bidache, Count of Gramont, with enforcing the order, sanctioned by the edict to restore Catholic worship and return property to the clergy. The Council of the Kingdom refused to publish the royal ordinance.
The Lord of Bidache organized several companies under the command of Catholic nobles who, under the pretext of reinstating mass and other Roman rites, engaged in pillaging villages and towns. Opposing them was Captain Santiago de Arros with two hundred Huguenot knights. Religious violence erupted again.
On November 22, 1573, another edict from Henry III, issued from Paris, again ordered the restoration of Catholic worship. Amid this instability, a new synod was held in Pau, attended by 81 pastors, Basques and Béarnais, indicating that the Reformation still had many followers in these territories. Nonetheless, persecution of Navarrese Huguenots, directed from Paris by the king, continued despite protests sent to Henry III by the Council of the Kingdom of Navarre.
On November 4, 1577, Henry III returned to his states accompanied by his sister Catherine of Bourbon, who had also abjured Protestantism under pressure from the French royal family. Three days later, in a solemn act, the siblings reaffirmed their Huguenot faith, and Henry III, aware that he would soon return to Paris, appointed Catherine as regent of his states.
Violence had engulfed Béarn and Lower Navarre, and despite Catherine’s prudent governance, peace seemed increasingly distant. On June 10, 1584, upon the death of Francis of Alençon, Duke of Anjou and heir to the French throne, Henry III of Navarre became the new Dauphin.
A year later, Pope Sixtus V excommunicated, by a papal bull, the future French sovereign and his sister Catherine, depriving them of rights over their possessions due to heresy. The papal bull reignited religious violence in Béarn and Lower Navarre. Catherine, loyal to the Reformed Church, had to face rebellious Catholic factions conducting raids against the Protestant population.
On August 2, 1589, Henry III of France was assassinated, and Henry III of Navarre became Henry IV of France. He is famously credited with saying, "Paris is well worth a Mass." To secure the French throne, Henry IV of France and III of Navarre abjured Protestantism for a second time on July 25, 1593, in a solemn ceremony at Saint-Denis Church in Paris.
Pope Clement VIII granted him absolution on the condition of abolishing the edicts of tolerance and persecuting the Huguenots. A final agreement was reached, and Henry IV’s excommunication was lifted. His first action after the papal interdict was to remove Regent Catherine from her states and transfer her to Paris. Once again, Roman Catholicism was forcibly reestablished, and violence rival factions intensified.
The fatigue generated by the endless religious wars prompted, among a responsible elite composed of Catholics and Protestants, the need to seek solutions to end the violence.
Drawing on the theory presented by Bodin in The Republic, they believed that the king should be above religious convictions and tolerate their diversity. Henry IV shared the same opinion. Furthermore, the issue of religious beliefs could lead to the disintegration of the kingdom, since the Huguenots threatened to abandon their loyalty to their sovereign and seek a new prince in the person of William of Orange, stathouder of the United Provinces.
The Huguenot minority was large enough to be taken into account, and a legislative act from the king needed to establish the legal status and rights of Protestants in France. In this context, the Edict of Nantes was drafted, published in four installments over twenty days, and became law on May 2, 1598.
The edict included a solemn proclamation, an annex of 56 secret articles on aspects of worship (the most restrictive), a title concerning reformed ministers, and a second group of secret articles regarding places of refuge for Protestants. Through the Edict of Nantes, France became a dual-confessional kingdom, both Catholic and Protestant, although the Reformed remained in a disadvantaged position due to their numerical inferiority.
For several years, a climate of relative peace prevailed in France, and Huguenot communities experienced a period of prosperity and development. As a result of this favorable environment, a new center of worship was established in Saint-André, two leagues from Bayonne, in 1599.
The most important cultural achievement of the Huguenot sovereigns of Navarre was the Protestant University of Orthez.
The embryo of this institution was the College of Lescar, reorganized rather than founded by Henry II and Marguerite of Navarre. During the following reign, Joan III tasked Pastor Marlin with transforming the college, taking inspiration from the one Calvin had created a few years earlier in Geneva. Thus, the old College of Lescar became an Academy, where professors and lecturers adhered to the Reformed creed.
In 1564, due to space constraints, the Academy of Lescar was moved to the former convent of the Preaching Brothers in Orthez. The friars were expelled without much consideration from a building that had belonged to their order for three hundred years, and over two years the space was adapted into an important teaching center.
In 1568, Joan III issued a royal order establishing chairs of medicine, law, and theology. Students and professors had to comply with a very strict set of rules, and students of "theology for ministers" were required to take an oath of adherence to the Confession of Faith of the Reformed Church.
The religious wars and the plague caused the Academy to return to Lescar in 1570, but in 1579 it was re-established in Orthez, and on September 1, 1581, an edict by Henry III of Navarre and IV of France granted it university status.
Ten years later, under the regency of Catherine, it returned to Lescar. These back-and-forth relocations reflect the instability of the era. Nevertheless, the University had a significant impact on society, producing renowned doctors and lawyers, as well as numerous cohorts of Reformed ministers. In 1617, it lost its university status and continued as an Academy for two more years, until in 1620, under pressure from the Catholic clergy, particularly the Jesuits, it was finally closed.
In the Iberian Peninsula, the clamor of the wars bleeding Christendom arrived quietly, because the kings of Spain and Portugal had initiated a policy that would win many followers among their successors over the next four hundred years: with the help of the Inquisition, they isolated their subjects from the rest of Europe to protect them from the danger of heresy.
The failure of the Diet of Worms, which did not succeed in neutralizing Luther, and the rapid spread of Protestantism convinced Emperor Charles V of the need to safeguard Spain from an infection that threatened the rest of his European domains.
He was still at Worms when, in April 1521, Inquisitor General Adrian of Utrecht, who would be elected pope two years later, sent him a letter signed by him and other members of the nobility, including the powerful Admiral of Castile, Diego Enríquez, urging him to use all possible means, diplomatic or military, to prevent Lutheran books from reaching Spain. This marked the beginning of a policy of isolation from Europe, with grave consequences for Spanish society, which became increasingly intolerant and xenophobic.
Among all the metropolitan territories of the Spanish Crown, the Basque Country posed the greatest difficulty in isolating it from the Lutheran threat. It had two borders open to heresy: to the west, the sea, the primary communication route, as ports along the Cantabrian coast had maintained millennia-old trade relations with countries now within the Protestant orbit; to the east, the Pyrenean massif was also not an impenetrable barrier. Numerous valleys and transversal gorges connected populations on both sides, giving them similar ethnic and cultural characteristics, maintained stubbornly above the political borders.
By the mid-sixteenth century, heresy had settled in Lower Navarre. The Spanish monarchy possessed an effective instrument to fight political and religious deviations: the Holy Office of the Inquisition, founded in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs. In 1523, the inquisitorial tribunal of Calahorra, which at the time had jurisdiction over the Basque Country (its seat moved to Logroño in 1570), received a report from the commissioner of the Holy Office in Pasajes, stating that a French ship carried a chest full of Lutheran books. This seizure alarmed the Inquisition Council, which intervened with Emperor Charles V to send a Royal Decree to the Corregidor of Gipuzkoa to assist the Inquisition.
After a few years of silence, in 1539, the "Lutheran danger" became apparent again at the Calahorra tribunal. Several English Lutherans were arrested in San Sebastián, Rentería, and Bilbao. The Holy Office’s stance radicalized due to small native Protestant outbreaks, and one of the Englishmen, John Tac, 25 years old, accused of obstinate heresy, was burned on May 20 in Bilbao.
From 1546 onward, anti-Lutheran concern grew, and so did repressive measures. Inquisitor Valdeolivas toured the Cantabrian coast to assess "in situ" the spiritual state of ports open to heresy. But with the ascension of Philip II and the emergence of major heretical centers in Valladolid and Seville, the Lutheran threat became even more evident. According to Iñaki Reguera, the Calahorra tribunal, due to its geographic location, became the most active against Protestantism in Spain, and while most of the accused were foreigners, several Spaniards, especially clerics, were also involved.
In 1563, a French cleric, Juan de Rojas, was arrested in Logroño by the Holy Office. His interrogation revealed that he had been sent by the Bishop of Lescar, Louis d’Albret, and Master Enrico, renowned Huguenots, to preach heresy in Spain. After two years of proselytism, he fell into the Inquisition’s hands, and his testimony led to the discovery of small nascent Lutheran communities in the Calahorra district.
Inquisitors were particularly interested in Lutheran or Huguenot communities near the border or in ports trading with Cantabrian towns. Ships from La Rochelle, a major Protestant hub, were rigorously searched, and crews interrogated, especially regarding Spaniards living there and their possible adherence to Lutheranism.
The same applied to ships from England, the Netherlands, and other openly Protestant countries. This inquisitorial activity significantly hampered trade, hence the frequent complaints by guilds and consulates to corregidores and central authorities.
In the last third of the sixteenth century, anti-Lutheran activity of the Calahorra-Logroño tribunal declined considerably. Iñaki Reguera identifies the most active period as 1540–1565. In 25 years, the tribunal condemned 946 people for "Lutheranism and heretical propositions", but only 62 were genuinely Lutheran, mostly foreigners, and only 3 were uted by burning. From 1575 onward, the Inquisition had essentially achieved its goal, and Protestantism was practically nonexistent in Spain and its overseas territories. The harsh repression of the main Lutheran centers, Valladolid and Seville, delivered the final blow to Spanish reformism. Until the late eighteenth century, the Holy Office prosecuted only sporadic Protestants, almost always foreigners.
The pacification brought by the Edict of Nantes was short-lived; religious violence resumed in 1610 following the assassination of Henry IV of France and III of Navarre by a fanatic Catholic, and the accession to the throne of his son, Louis XIII of France and II of Navarre.
As the young king was only 9 years old, the regency was entrusted to his mother, Marie de Médicis, a stubborn and not very intelligent woman, surrounded by Italian advisers, including her wet nurse Eleanora Galigai, who dabbled in black magic and witchcraft.
On December 31, 1617, the Council of the Kingdom decreed in Paris the union of Navarre and Béarn with France. In February 1618, these formerly sovereign states, which had shared a monarch with France, opposed the annexation. The king arrived with an army and, consolidating the incorporation of Béarn and Navarre into France, forcibly restored Catholicism and ordered the return of all properties confiscated from Catholics since 1569.
In 1620, a Parliament was established in Pau, which definitively ratified the integration of the former Navarrese royal states into the political organization of the French monarchy. The Parliament quickly became an effective instrument of anti-Protestant repression.
Faced with this situation, and to unify their forces, on October 10, 1637, during a Synod in Alençon, the Reformed Churches of Navarre and Béarn saw their to join the Reformed Church of France granted. After the fall of the formidable Protestant stronghold of La Rochelle in 1628, the situation for the Reformed worsened considerably. Theoretically, the Edict of Grace of Alès allowed Protestants to retain the religious freedoms granted by the Edict of Nantes, but it also ordered the destruction of all Huguenot fortresses and forbade political assemblies of Protestants.
Throughout France, the Reformed faith was in decline, remaining active only in Languedoc, Poitou, the Basque Country, and Béarn. According to Juan María Olaizola, in 1665 there were still 6,414 Protestant families in the Basque Country (about 35,000 members), with 39 pastors, 46 recognized churches, and 86 temporary temples.
From 1654, a new king ascended the French throne: Louis XIV. Although French Protestants had remained submissive to the Crown, even during the Fronde (1649), the future “Sun King” wished to end the religious duality. Some blame his favorite then wife, Madame de Maintenon, daughter of converted Huguenots, while others blame the king’s Jesuit confessor, Father La Chaize. In any case, from 1665, measures against Protestants became increasingly harsh.
A Royal Edict, “perpetual and irrevocable” of April 1668, reduced the number of 86 Reformed temples in Navarre and Béarn to 20. In 1670, the Council of Navarre limited the number of authorized pastors to two and withdrew their official stipends. From then on, they had to be supported by their congregations.
The Treaty of Nijmegen (1678) further intensified anti-Protestant policy. Huguenots were excluded from all royal offices, from the houses of the king, queen, and princes of the blood, and from state administration. They could not work as lawyers, doctors, midwives, apothecaries, shopkeepers, printers, or booksellers. Reformed schools were moved to the outskirts of towns. Children, from the age of seven, were considered capable of reason and choice in religious matters, and could abjure against their parents’ wishes. These and many other measures targeted Protestants, who endured them with remarkable docility; in popular speech, one said, “he is patient as a Huguenot.”
From 1680, the “dragonnades” were implemented as the most effective means to eradicate Protestantism. They involved forcing Reformed families to house companies of dragoons, the most undisciplined soldiers of the king’s army, whom they had to feed and accommodate. This mob, composed of society’s lowest elements, committed the worst abuses in the homes of unfortunate Huguenots. Under the pretext of military operations against Spain, ten thousand dragoons, commanded by Intendant Foucault, were sent to Lower Navarre and Béarn, where, besides committing all kinds of atrocities, they destroyed all remaining Protestant temples dating from before 1598, on Foucault’s orders.
A logical consequence of this situation was the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. On October 15, 1685, Louis XIV signed the Edict of Fontainebleau, which repealed the decrees issued in Nantes in 1598, stating that “the greater and better part of our subjects had embraced Catholicism.”
The revocation act provided for the destruction of all Protestant temples, except in Alsace, the prohibition of the Reformed worship anywhere, and the banning of any Protestant assembly. Pastors who had not converted to Roman Catholicism were given fifteen days to leave the kingdom, while lay Reformed members had to remain. Those outside the country were granted four months to return to France, or else their property and estates would be confiscated and they would lose all their rights as subjects.
Reformed schools were suppressed, and Protestant children were rebaptized according to the Roman ritual and educated in the Catholic religion. In regions not yet converted, the dragonnades were intensified, and 400 missionaries were sent to carry out a coercive apostolate among the population.
As expected, these drastic measures triggered mass emigration. With the support of embassies and legations from Protestant countries, solidarity networks were established to help Reformed believers leave France. It is estimated that more than 200,000 people left, despite the severe penalties for those caught fleeing: galley service or life imprisonment for men, and confinement in convents for women.
The implementation of the Edict of Fontainebleau in the regions of Iparralde, especially in Lower Navarre, which had the highest percentage of Protestants among its population, was carried out with particular rigor.
In a short time, all Reformed places of worship disappeared. The demolition of the temples, which had begun even before the signing of the Edict, was completed in 1688, although in many cases the Reformed faithful continued to practice their faith clandestinely. The exercise of certain professions was also prohibited, particularly for lawyers trained at the Protestant University of Orthez. Of the 200 lawyers in all of Iparralde at that time, 150 had graduated from Orthez.
The pressure on the Reformed became unbearable, and they eventually had to choose abjuration, real or feigned, and exile.
The dragonnades, increasingly frequent and numerous, terrified the population, which sometimes renounced their faith en masse at the announcement of the troops’ arrival. According to Article 4 of the Edict of Fontainebleau, which required pastors to leave the Kingdom of France, many Basque ministers had to relocate to Protestant countries willing to receive them. Following their pastors, many faithful chose exile. England, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the Protestant colonies in America were the main destinations for Basque Reformed believers.
The Viceroy of Navarre granted some safe-conducts to Protestant families from Soule and Lower Navarre so they could leave through the ports of Pasajes and San Sebastián. However, these passes were sometimes ignored by local Guipuzcoan authorities, and the Reformed ended up stripped of all their possessions or in the hands of the Inquisition.
As is often the case, the Edict of Fontainebleau served to settle personal and local disputes. The arbitrariness of its enforcement ruined families and entire communities and contributed to decimating the population, especially in Lower Navarre, but also in the territories of Soule and Labourd.
The practice of the Reformed faith took refuge in forests or inaccessible locations, always under the risk of denunciation. In Lower Navarre alone, during the first years of the Edict’s application, more than twenty pastors were uted for practicing the faith clandestinely. This situation continued until 1715, when Louis XIV died, and his five-year-old grandson, Louis XV, succeeded him under the regency of Philippe of Orleans.
During his reign, which lasted until 1723, the Regent, entirely free of religious fanaticism and criticized by the Catholic hierarchy for his “inclination to pleasures,” contributed to implementing local measures aimed at easing the situation of Protestants, who gradually emerged from clandestinity in an atmosphere of increasing permissiveness. At the same time, a significant change was taking shape in Western society.
For the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), the word Enlightenment, which gave its name to an entire era, meant “the emergence of man from his minority” and could be summed up in two words: Sapere aude! “Dare to know!”
This phrase encapsulated the intellectual convictions of philosophers and scientists of the 18th century. For the first time, setting aside the old heritage of medieval and Christian thought, humans were able to shake off the yoke of political and religious authority and dared to think for themselves.
One of the most effective vehicles for spreading Enlightenment ideas was the Encyclopedia, whose first volume was published in Paris in 1751. This monumental work of universal culture, which placed reason as the sole guide for human actions in its thousands of articles, was almost immediately banned by the Spanish Inquisition. An edict of March 1759 prohibited its reading for all subjects of the Spanish monarchy, including those in its vast overseas empire, except in a few cases deemed of societal interest.
Despite the dynastic change that, at the beginning of the 18th century, allowed the Bourbons to ascend to the Spanish throne, the old alliance the Inquisition and the Crown, established under the Catholic Monarchs, remained in force and continued until the early decades of the 19th century.
Certainly, some ideological changes gradually modified the attitudes of the Spanish enlightened minority toward religious dissent, but they lacked the power to bring about the institutional change necessary to achieve freedom of conscience, i.e., the abolition of the Holy Office.
It was precisely in the Basque territories under the political administration of the Spanish Crown that Enlightenment ideas were most enthusiastically received. Guipuzcoa had the largest number of subscribers to the Encyclopedia in the entire Spanish monarchy, and this enthusiasm for the Enlightenment crystallized in institutions such as the Real Seminario Patriótico de Nobles de Vergara and the Real Sociedad Bascongada de Amigos del País.
However, in the numerous memorials presented to the King by this enlightened elite, concerned with the progress of humanity, there was no mention of the need for greater religious tolerance. The Plan of an economic or academic society of agriculture, useful sciences and arts, and commerce, adapted to the circumstances and particular economy of the Very Noble and Very Loyal Province of Guipuzcoa, presented to the Juntas Generales of Gipuzkoa in 1763 and the basis of the future Real Sociedad Bascongada de Amigos del País, constantly referred to the need to bring foreign masters to teach locals various arts and trades, but without considering the obstacles imposed by the Inquisition on foreigners, especially those from Protestant countries.
In the Inquisition archives, from the second half of the 18th century, numerous trials appear against English, Dutch, German, and other foreign subjects settled in San Sebastián or Bilbao. According to the summaries, they had moved to these cities to engage in commercial or industrial activities: “create a shipping company,” “set up a stocking factory,” “organize a weaving industry in the English style.”
Denunciations by neighbors or servants, accusing them of belonging to “the sect of Protestants” and sometimes proselytizing among relatives or friends, brought them into the hands of the Holy Office. In the best case, they had to leave the country, abandoning their business, and in the worst case, end up in prison in Logroño.
These trials, the only evidence of a very limited Protestant presence in the Spanish Basque Country in the late 18th century, reveal the enormous damage that religious intolerance caused to the nascent Industrial Revolution. The indifference of institutions like the Real Sociedad Bascongada de Amigos del País to this serious obstacle demonstrates the absence of a truly progressive consciousness within the enlightened oligarchy of Hegoalde.
Although the spirit of the Enlightenment was gradually penetrating the ruling class, in the 18th century there were still some episodes of violence against Protestants.
In 1745, the Parliament of the Dauphiné sent 21 Protestants to the galleys, and the following year there were dragonnades in Guyenne and Ariège. In Béarn and Languedoc, the Reformed rose up to prevent the enforcement of discriminatory laws. In 1761, the last Huguenot, Jean Calas, a merchant from Toulouse, was uted, falsely accused of murdering his son to prevent him from becoming Catholic. He died on the breaking wheel and was rehabilitated three years later. Voltaire worked to denounce those responsible for this heinous crime.
From 1770 onwards, new Huguenot temples were built throughout France, and from that date, no one was condemned to the galleys for their Protestant faith. On May 2, 1787, at the prolegomena of the French Revolution, the leader of the liberal nobility, Lafayette, from his seat in the Assembly of Notables, asked Louis XVI to convene the Estates-General to revise the penal code of 1670.
The king, advised by the conservative faction, dissolved the Assembly on May 25, but Lafayette succeeded in sending to the Bureau de Monsieur, a kind of permanent commission, the for two reforms: the restoration of civil rights to Protestants and the aforementioned revision of the penal code. All leading intellectuals, including the brilliant Condorcet, defender of all marginalized groups, fully supported Lafayette’s .
In August of that year, the new Minister of State, the progressive Lomenie de Brienne, commissioned a legislative committee, presided over by the eminent jurist Farget, to revise the civil and criminal laws. One of the committee’s first decisions was the restoration of the Edict of Nantes. However, it would take another two years for the Constituent Assembly to fully recognize Protestants as citizens with all their rights, on September 24, 1789. Jews, on the other hand, were not granted the same recognition, as their equality before the law was rejected by five votes.
Protestant Revival in the 19th Century.
Within the churches born from the Reformation, there have periodically been movements or "revivals", whose main purpose was to achieve or restore a purer Christianity, more in line with the evangelical message. Roman Catholicism also experienced spiritual currents seeking a more sincere faith, closer to the primitive doctrine. However, Catholic revivals almost never resulted in schisms from the mother Church, while these movements within Protestantism, due to their own dynamics, often produced sects separated from the main confession.
At the end of the 18th century, a general revival process began within Protestant churches. The main driving force of this expansive movement was the Bible Societies, which, propelled by extraordinary missionary zeal, sent their members to spread the Gospels to the most remote and unlikely places.
Background of the Spanish Revival.
These colporteurs or missionaries began to appear regularly on the Peninsula around 1820, possibly taking advantage of a relatively favorable period during the disastrous reign of Fernando VII, known as the Trienio Liberal.
The most famous of them was Jorge Borrow, popularly known as “Don Jorgito the Englishman.” His journeys as a Bible seller across the Peninsula are recounted in his famous book The Bible in Spain, which has had multiple editions and serves as an extraordinary document on Spanish society of that time.
In The Bible in Spain, Borrow mentions the existence of a translation of the Gospel of Saint Luke into Basque. This work was carried out by a Guipuzcoan doctor, surnamed Oteiza, in 1836, and printed in Madrid in 1838. Borrow describes it as follows:
"The year 1838 began when I sent to the press two works that had been in preparation for some time. They were the Gospel of Saint Luke, in Spanish Romani language and in the Euskara language."
These works were confiscated by the police and transferred to a Madrid police depot. Although the Holy Office had ceased to exist five years earlier, religious tolerance in the Spanish State was still a pure abstraction. Only two copies of each work survived the destruction and, “for their merits as philological works,” according to the Royal Order of prohibition of July 21, 1839, they were placed in the reserved section of the National Library’s collection.
Luis Usoz del Río
Born in Madrid in 1805, of Navarrese ancestry, Luis Usoz del Río was an interesting figure, although some authors consider him a native of Charcas (Potosí). He studied Humanities and Law, and learned Hebrew with Orchell at the Estudios Reales de San Isidro, taking charge of the Hebrew chair at the University of Valladolid while still very young.
He then went to Bologna, where he stayed for five years at the Spanish College of San Clemente, earning his doctorate there. Back in Spain, he married a wealthy heiress and devoted himself to the comparative study of religions.
A book purchased from a peddler, which turned out to be Apología de la Verdadera Theología cristiana by Robert Barclay, sparked his interest in the Society of Friends (Quakers), whose doctrines were presented in the work. He traveled to London, and accompanied by Jorge Borrow, visited the Bible Society and attended the annual meeting of the Society of Friends. From that moment on, Usoz became an unwavering defender of the Reformed faith.
With the support of the Spanish Evangelization Society, in 1855, he formed a committee to promote Bible reading in Spain. But the work that earned him a place of honor among Protestants was the formation of the library of the “Reformistas Antiguos Españoles,” containing works of incalculable value, such as the writings of the Valdés brothers or Juan Díaz’s Historia Anónima, to name just a few.
The restoration of the Edict of Nantes (1787) and the granting of full civil rights to Protestants provided a respite for the Reformed communities of Iparralde, although authorities sometimes continued to impose administrative obstacles to the practice of the Protestant faith.
In 1818, the Committee of Elders of Osés and Bayonne ed permission to create two new churches, but did not obtain approval from the Minister of Worship until 1820. That same year, the Swiss pastor Henry Pyt took charge of the church in Bayonne. Soon, Pastor Pyt and his family’s proselytism was felt, and in 1822, ten young people were admitted as members of the Reformed church of Bayonne.
From 1823, the Bayonne city council granted Protestants a subsidy of 600 francs for religious services. With the help of Gaidor, Pyt translated the New Testament into Basque, distributing many copies in Hegoalde, mainly in Guipuzcoa and Upper Navarre. He can be considered the first missionary to resume evangelizing in these regions since the 16th century.
Among Pyt’s successors, Pastor Nogaret stood out for his tireless work, which also extended to small Protestant communities in Guipuzcoa. Nogaret, who also ministered in the Biarritz area, briefly reached an agreement with the Anglican Church (economically well-endowed due to the large English colony in Biarritz) to hold evangelical services in their church, but administrative problems quickly ended this collaboration.
In 1882, Countess de Nadaillac donated land to build a Reformed church, which was inaugurated in 1884. The first pastoral ordinations in Bayonne took place on May 20, 1890, with two pastors being ordained: Henry Guex and Jorge Boissonas, Henry Guex being appointed pastor of Bayonne.
Following the Law of Separation of Church and State in 1905, an Association of Reformed Churches was formed, holding its first general assembly in Bayonne in 1906.
During the first decade of the 20th century, Pastor Louis Bertrand carried out significant evangelizing work throughout Lapurdi, especially among workers in the Boucau steel industries. In 1914, he was mobilized due to the European war.
His successors held the position for short periods due to the conflict, and in 1919, Pastor Bertrand temporarily resumed leadership of his congregation, leaving it again two years later. In 1923, a new Reformed worship center was temporarily established in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, operating for ten years before being closed. In the years preceding the Second World War, Protestantism ed signs of stagnation, with the number of adherents decreasing slightly but without an alarming drop.
The period known as the “Second Protestant Reformation” refers to the time when, thanks to the religious tolerance resulting from the 1868 Revolution, known as “La Gloriosa”, Protestants finally enjoyed full freedom to practice their faith and spread it throughout Spain.
The famous phrase addressed by General Prim to a group of Protestant pastors in Algeciras is well known:
"You may now travel across Spain with the Bible under your arm."
However, introducing the spirit of Protestantism into a closed and immobile country was not an easy task. While the First Reformation had been suppressed at its roots with the collaboration of the Santo Oficio, the Second Reformation faced an ideological barrier almost impossible to overcome, which limited its expansion.
Furthermore, by the sword of General Pavía, the Monarchical Restoration quickly arrived in the person of Alfonso XII (1874), and the situation worsened again, with the Law of Freedom of Worship established by the 1869 Constitution being abolished.
Due to its border location and its traditional role as a settlement for foreigners engaged in industrial or commercial activities in Gipuzkoa, and especially in the San Sebastián area, there were always small Protestant communities, even during periods of great religious intolerance, who often attended the churches in Bayonne or Biarritz to practice their faith.
Pastor Pyt, 1828 and 1830, carried out evangelical work in the border regions, particularly in Hondarribia, where he introduced copies of the New Testament translated into Basque by Gaidor.
The Second Reformation began in Gipuzkoa in 1853, before the rest of the country, when the tireless Pastor Nogaret started his pastoral activity. Aware of the difficulties faced by Basque Protestants, Nogaret, who regularly visited the small Protestant communities in Gipuzkoa, opened a Protestant boarding school in Bayonne in 1864, intended for young people from across the border.
However, the most remarkable achievement was the International Institute for Young Ladies, founded in San Sebastián by the American couple Alicia and William Gulik in 1881. Most of the students were scholarship holders, supported by the Woman's Board of Missions.
In 1887, a public and free nursery was established. The International Institute, popularly known as the American College, conducted intense activity and gained great prestige. Among its greatest achievements was preparing some of the first female university graduates in Spain, with degrees in Philosophy and Letters, Esther Alonso and Juliana Campo, in 1897.
The declaration of war Spain and the United States in 1898 forced the Institute to close and move to Biarritz. Nevertheless, the Bible Society continued its work despite administrative obstacles and surrounding religious fanaticism.
In 1925, a small Reformed chapel was established in Centenario Square in San Sebastián, but three years later, the owner forced them to vacate. They moved to a villa facing the bay, where, under Pastor Elías Marqués, the evangelical work continued until 1936. The Spanish Civil War and the capture of San Sebastián by the requeté troops forced Pastor Marqués to flee with his family. At the end of the war, the American committee sold the building of the evangelical work.
In Bizkaia, as in Gipuzkoa, there were always small Protestant communities, generally composed of foreigners, who practiced their faith privately and semi-clandestinely.
In 1876, Pastor José Marqués managed to establish a Protestant chapel in a former pelota court, but Catholic intolerance forced him to leave. For 15 years, he was expelled from more than ten locations, until in 1890, with the financial support of Pastor Gulick from San Sebastián, he acquired land on San Francisco Street and built a five-story building serving as a church, school, and housing for the pastor’s and teachers’ families.
Pastor Marqués extended his evangelical work to the Somorrostro mining basin and the Mena Valley. However, for intransigent Catholics, the presence of “heretics” on Biscayan soil was intolerable. In 1915, a group of youths from a parish association threw sulfuric acid at a Bible distribution booth set up in the Campo de Volantín, causing serious burns to the Bible colporter, Manuel Arbiza.
Years later, in 1926, when the former Capuchin turned evangelical pastor José María Gorria arrived in Bilbao to preach, bands of youths belonging to the Marian Congregations of the Luises Obreros and the Franciscan Tertiary organizations tried to stop him by force. There were clashes with liberal and socialist groups, and the pastor was finally able to preach, but upon leaving Bilbao, his rail car was stoned.
Due to a lack of resources, the American mission had to sell the building on San Francisco Street, and the Protestant church was moved to Particular de Alzola Street. The 1936 Civil War and the occupation of Bilbao caused the pastors and many Protestant families to flee.
The geographical location of Álava, with no border with the outside and far from the coast, made the task of Reformed evangelists extremely difficult. Furthermore, as a logical consequence of this situation, Alavese society was always particularly traditionalist and intolerant regarding religion.
In 1910, a Bible colporter who set up a small stand selling Holy Scriptures and Protestant books was beaten, robbed, and all his materials were destroyed. Another incident of similar barbarity occurred in 1915.
Fanaticism prevented any Protestant proselytism for decades, and the Reformed presence in Álava remained almost nonexistent until the 1960s.
The frantic activity of the Inquisition, combined with complex sociological and political causes, pushed the old kingdom towards positions of total religious intolerance.
Small Protestant communities, in this case of Huguenot origin, were able to survive clandestinely and reach the 19th century, mainly in the Ribera region and in Pamplona.
In 1828, Pastor Pyt began an evangelical mission in the Baztán Valley, but with very limited results. As in Álava, Protestantism in Navarra faced the stronghold of radical Catholicism and could hardly develop until the second half of the 20th century.
In Hegoalde
After two decades of religious intolerance, the Franco dictatorship was forced to open up to the outside world. This situation, together with being fully tied to the United States, the leading power of the empire, led by a predominantly Protestant political class, compelled the Spanish government to loosen restrictions and initiate a policy of respect toward religious minorities.
On January 10, 1967, after many discussions, with the veto of part of the Catholic hierarchy and opposition from the most conservative sectors of society, General Franco cautiously modified fundamental precepts of the regime, enacting a modest Law on Religious Freedom.
From then on, Reformed communities could carry out their activities with greater tranquility. In Gipuzkoa, the evangelical temple, since 1946, when worship resumed after the trauma of the war, moved through several locations before finally settling in 1968 on Secundino Esnaola Street in San Sebastián, in a building that also included a Sunday school, an assembly hall, and the pastor’s residence.
The Protestant presence developed in Gipuzkoa, and by the 1980s, there were places of worship in San Sebastián, Irun, Rentería, Hernani, Ordizia, and Eibar.
In Bizkaia, since the 1960s, the Reformed faith experienced a notable increase, especially on the left bank and throughout the Greater Bilbao area. In 1980, there were 16 Protestant places of worship: 10 in Bilbao, 2 in Baracaldo, 1 in Algorta, 1 in Basauri, 1 in Portugalete, and 1 in Santurce.
In Álava, a territory traditionally anchored in integrist Catholicism, the Reformed Church has always faced numerous difficulties despite the 1967 Law on Religious Freedom. In 1980, there were five places of worship, all in Vitoria.
In Navarra, Protestantism faced similar challenges due to societal intransigence. In 1980, there were officially three places of worship in Pamplona, although small Reformed communities existed in Tudela and Tafalla.
On February 22, 1990, Luis María Zavala, Deputy Director General of Religious Relations at the Spanish Ministry of Justice, signed an Organic Law on Religious Freedom, enforcing Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees equality of all Spaniards before the law. This legally ended 500 years of intolerance and officially restored relations with Muslims, Jews, and Protestants. At that time, the Reformed Church had around 300,000 members throughout Spain.
In Iparralde
In Lapurdi, there are Reformed Church of France temples in Baiona, Biarritz, and Saint-Jean-de-Luz, in Lower Navarra in Saint-Palais and Donibane Garatzi, and in Soule (Zuberoa) in Mauleon.
The Anglican Church is also present in Lapurdi with a temple in Biarritz and another in Saint-Jean-de-Luz during the summer months.
The relations the Protestant Church and the French State, which has maintained secularism since 1905, are good. Unlike in Spain, since the French Revolution, Protestants have had a minority but effective presence in government and high administrative posts. This trend continues today.