RECENT RESEARCH TO THE HISTORY OF PROTESTANTISM IN AND

Klaus van der Grijp

The past of the Protestant churches in Spain and Portugal only goes back to the 19th century. In Spain, the 16th-century Reformation did find supporters, witnesses, even martyrs, but it did not lead to the formation of permanent church communities. In contrast to Protestantism in , and Belgium, Protestantism in the Iberian Peninsula is a relatively young movement. This fact in itself may already explain why the inquiry into the history of this movement had such a slow start. Another explanation is to be found in the social position of Spanish and Portuguese Protestants. In a culture that was largely determined by Roman Catholicism the daily struggle for existence required a great deal of effort. Having hardly consolidated their position, the Protestant churches saw their existence heavily taxed under the dictatorships of Salazar (1932-1968) and Franco (1939-1975). For a long time, therefore, they lacked the conditions which should enable them to be confronted with their past in a process of self-reflection. However, a change in this was brought about by the swing of culture that took place in recent years, and this article was written to give a brief account of the process of change. From about 1870, the rise of a Protestant movement in Spain and Portugal attracted the attention of certain church circles elsewhere in Europe. Supporting groups in Germany, the , Great Britain and France all had an interest not only in providing their supporters with topical information, but also in giving them now and then a better understanding of the wider relationship between the events. The first attempts at an interpretation of Iberian Protestantism is found in pamphlets published by diaspora organisations. In Germany they were, among others, the Gustav-Adolf Society 1 and the Evangelical Society,' in Scotland the Spanish Evangelization

1 Eduard Böhmer,Die evangelischeBewegung in Spanien. Ein Vortrag auf Anregungder HalleschenStudentenschaft und fur dieselbegehalten am 22. Juli 1869. Halle 1869, 19 pp.; Hermann Baumgarten,Die religiöse EntwicklungSpaniens. Vortrag. Strassburg 1875; Friedrich Pressel, Das Evangeliumin Spanien. Freienwaldea.0. 1877. 280pp. (Bausteinezur Geschichtedes Gustav-Adolph-Vereins.Bd. 1.); RaimundGaebelein, Die politischen und religiösen VerhältnisseSpaniens. Leipzig, [after 1896]. 40 pp. (Flug- schriftendes EvangelischenBundes, 177-178).See also the Dutchversion of a pamphlet by GustavFriedrich Herzberg,De Hervormingin Spanjein onze dagen. Rede, gehouden bij gelegenheidvan het 25-jarig bestaan der Gustaaf-Adolf-Vereenigingin de provincie Saksen. Naar het Hoogduitschdoor Hendrik Jan van Lummel.Utrecht 1870. 171

Society,2 in England and Ireland the Spanish and Portuguese Church Aid Society3 and in France in a slightly later period the Mission Française du Haut-Aragon.4 In Spain itself the first attempt at an interpretation of the Protestant movement was motivated by the polemics of antagonists. At the end of his monumental Historia de los heterodoxos espafioles5 the strictly Catholic historian Marcelino Men6ndez y Pelayo devotes a few paragraphs to his Protestant contemporaries. He cannot appreciate them in any respect. As far as Portugal is concerned, the book by Diogo (= James) Cassels, A Reforma em Portugal (Porto, 1906) deserves special mention during this period. Cassels was a British businessman, who had established himself in Vila Nova de Gaia, which was situated south of the port of Porto. From 1866 onwards he applied himself to the formation and support of churches and schools, at first in co-operation with the Methodists and since 1880 in co- operation with the - Anglican-oriented - Igreja Lusitana. His book is a basic document for the study of early Methodism as well as early Anglicanism in Portugal. From about 1930 onwards the International Missionary Council promoted the systematic inquiry into the situation of young churches. This meant that ample attention was paid to the culture of their environment, their social significance and the degree to which they depended on foreign financial resources. During this very period a generation was growing up among Protestants in Spain and Portugal with a certain intellectual interest, a generation which was fully prepared to put the traditional faith in a new context. The time was therefore ripe for the studies by Eduardo Henriques Moreira in Portugal' and by Carlos Garcia Araujo and Kenneth G. Grub in Spain.' These were critical studies: loyal to the Protestant movement, it is true, but not inclined to avoid difficult questions. The ambitious expectations with which - especially in Spain - the propaganda had started at the time had not come true. The growth of the churches had come to a standstill, they still

2 Maria Denoon Peddie, Thedawn of the SecondReformation in Spain. Being the story of its rise and progressfrom the year 1852, Edinburgh 1871, 238pp. 3 Henry Edward Noyes, Church reform in Spain and Portugal: a short history of the ReformedEpiscopal Churches of Spain and Portugal, from 1868 to the present time. With an introd. by [William Conyngham]Plunket, London 1897, 192 págs. 4 René Matile,Le protestantisme enEspagne. Causeriedonnée à l'associationévangélique de Leysin. Imprimerie J. Borloz, Aigle-et-Laysin1931. 31 pp. Extrait de la Feuille d'avis du district d'Aigle, nos. 88-99. 5 First edition Santander, 1877-1878;several reprints. 6 The significanceof Portugal. A survey of Evangelicalprogress. World DominionPress, London/NewYork/Toronto, 1933, 71pp.; a Portugueseedition: Asituçao religiosa em Portugal. Conspectoe consideraçaes. Portugal Novo, Lisboa 1935. 7 Religion in the republic of Spain. World DominionPress, London/NewYork/Toronto 1933. 109 pp.; in Spanish: La religión en la república española. Estudio escrito en inglés. Traducción española abreviada por Juan Orts González. Sociedadde Tratados Evangélicos, Madrid s.a.