Author Archives: William Newton

Sant Sever

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Sant SeverEsglésia de Sant Sever de Barcelona
Built: 1698-1705
Function: Former parish church; currently part of the Cathedral museum
Address: Sant Sever, 9-11

The Church of Saint Severus of Barcelona is located close to the Episcopal Palace and the Cathedral cloister. It houses the shrine of St. Severus, who was Bishop of Barcelona from 290 to 304 A.D. St. Severus was martyred during the persecutions of the Roman Emperor Diocletian.

The present structure was built between 1698 and 1705 in a high baroque style. It has a single nave, a polygonal apse, and lateral side chapels. Unlike most of the churches in Barcelona, it was not burned by the Leftists during the Spanish Civil War. As a result, its Baroque interior was the only one in the city’s few Baroque-era churches to remain completely intact.

In 2007 Sant Sever was designated as a museum space for the Cathedral’s collections of Baroque and contemporary art. I am not at present aware of whether Mass or religious ceremonies still take place there. Sant Sever is not listed among the parishes of the Archdiocese, but there is a joint parish of St. Severus and St. Francis Xavier which makes me think that the former parish was joined to the latter.

Sant Josep Oriol

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Basilica-Església de Sant Josep Oriol
Built: 1911-1929
Function: Parish church; minor basilica
Address: Diputació 145

Saint Joseph Oriol (1650-1702) was a Barcelona native who became a priest and earned his Doctorate in Theology from the University of Barcelona. He was known to be very humble and dress shabbily, was popular among the poor and the sick, for whom he worked miraculous cures through God’s Grace, as well as for being a holy spiritual director. He is buried in Santa Maria del Pi, the parish he served (along with the church of Sant Felip Neri nearby) from 1686 until his death.

As Barcelona expanded in the 19th and early 20th century, new churches needed to be built to serve the ever-increasing population. In 1907 Cardinal Casanyas of Barcelona announced that a large church dedicated to (then) Blessed Joseph Oriol would be built in one of these new neighborhoods. Upon the canonization of St. Joseph Oriol in 1909 by Pope Pius X, fundraising for the project attracted more subscribers and the cornerstone of the present structure was laid in 1911.

The Basilica was designed in a Neo-Renaissance style by the important Catalan architect Enric Sagnier i Villavecchia, who also designed the basilica at Tibidabo and worked on a number of ecclesiastical and other buildings in Catalonia. His style is somewhat clumsy, but during his lifetime he was heavily favored with many ecclesiastical commissions. The church was elevated to the status of a Minor Basilica in 1936 by Pope Pius XII. It was burned by the Leftists that same year but later restored.

En Marcús

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En MarcúsCapella d’En Marcús
Built: 1166-1188
Founded: 1150
Function: Chapel
Address: Carders 2

The Chapel of Marcús was built by a wealthy banker and merchant named Bernat Marcús, who did a roaring trade with the Byzantine Empire. Marcús donated some of his land holdings for the construction of the Hospital de la Bona Sort (Hospital of Good Fortune), an almshouse and hospital for travelers who had arrived in Barcelona after the city gates were shut for the night. The chapel was dedicated to La Mare de Déu de la Guía – The Mother of God the Guide – appropriately enough, given the function of the institution.

At the time, the hospital stood on the old Roman road out of the city. Today, the hospital is gone and the city has swallowed up the formerly open space, leaving only the chapel hemmed in by taller buildings. Miraculously, the chapel managed to survive urban development, perhaps because the land it occupies is so small. In the early 19th century the interior was remodeled in Neoclassical style, and although pretty as a jewel box, it now bears no stylistic relation to the aged exterior.

This Romanesque-Byzantine chapel was also the city’s equivalent of FedEx beginning in the 12th century and continuing until around 1400. The Confraria del Correus a Cavall (Mounted Couriers Guild) used the chapel as their local place of worship, and during the Middle Ages the porch of this chapel was where you went if you wanted to send a letter or a parcel to somewhere else in Catalonia via the medieval equivalent of the pony express. It was the central dispatch and receiving point for all correspondence crossing the Pyrenees between France and the Iberian peninsula.

Església de Sarrià

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Església de SarriàEsglésia de Sant Vicenç de Sarrià
Built: 1781-1789
Founded: Before 975 A.D.
Function: Parish church
Address: Plaça de Sarrià

This church is dedicated to Saint Vincent of Zaragoza, a deacon who was martyred under the persecutions of the Emperor Diocletian in 304 A.D., as were both St. Eulalia and Barcelona’s bishop St. Severus. St. Vincent’s shrine is in the Catalan city of Valencia, but his popularity extends throughout Spain and Portugal. St. Vincent is a very popular boy’s name among Catalans.

The first documentary evidence of this church of Saint Vincent dates from 987 A.D., describing how the original church standing on this site was sacked and burned by the Muslim warrior general Al-Mansur of Cordoba, during a raid in 975 A.D. At that time, Sarrià was a village some distance from Barcelona, not the northern end of the city as it is today. The old church was torn down and a new, Romanesque church was built to replace it, and consecrated in 1147.

The village came under the jurisdiction of the Monastery of Pedralbes, not far away, and a new, larger Gothic structure was built between 1373 and 1403 to replace the earlier Romanesque church. An altarpiece for the high altar was commissioned from the great Catalan medieval painter Jaume Huguet in 1458, showing scenes from the life of St. Vincent, parts of which have survived and are preserved in the National Museum of Catalan Art on Montjuich. The area continued to grow, however, and eventually the church became too small.

In 1779, the citizens of Sarria requested and obtained permission to tear down the Gothic church and build an even larger, neoclassical building, which was completed in 1789. The baroque interior of the church was burned by the Leftists during the Spanish Civil War in 1936. The sanctuary area was redecorated in 1954, and most of the art in the church dates from this period, with the exception of a couple of 17th century altarpieces that were donated from other institutions or individuals after the Civil War.

Of note in the church is the tomb of Blessed Pere Tarrés Claret (1905-1950), a doctor who later became a priest. He managed to survive the Civil War despite a period in which he was conscripted into serving as a medic for the Communists. He was beatified in 2004 by Pope John Paul II, and more details of his biography can be read on the Vatican’s website.

Episcopal History of the See of Barcelona

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Arms

Arms of the
Archdiocese of Barcelona

The episcopal history of Barcelona is extremely well-documented for such an ancient see. The diocese was originally a suffragan of the very ancient Archdiocese of Tarragona, in southern Catalonia. St. Paul mentioned in his Epistle to the Romans (15:24, 28) that he was on his way to Spain, and St. Jerome asserted that St. Paul founded the first Christian community in the city of Tarraco (the modern-day city of Tarragona, south of Barcelona).

At the time of the Apostles, Tarragona was the capital of the large Roman province of Tarraconensis, which encompassed all of northern, central, and eastern Spain, and Barcelona was a small city on the road to Gaul. Over time, Tarragona shrank in size and was supplanted by Barcelona both in size and importance. However it was only in 1964 the Diocese of Barcelona separated from Tarragona, and was made a Metropolitan Archdiocese by Pope Paul VI.

Church tradition in Barcelona says the arrival of Christianity goes back to Apostolic Times, specifically to Saint Aetherius, a disciple of St. James the Apostle, who supposedly brought Christianity to Barcelona in 37 A.D., although it is more likely he was born in 37 A.D. Tradition also says he was succeeded by Saint Theodosius, who ruled until 94 A.D. After a series of bishops whose names we know, but whose words and works are known to God alone, the next notable bishop was Saint Severus, who was born in Barcelona in the third century.

St. Severus served as bishop of Barcelona from about 290 to 304 A.D., when he was martyred by use of the cat-of-nine-tails under the persecutions of the Emperor Diocletian. His shrine is located in a Baroque church not far from Barcelona’s Cathedral. However, there are also relics of him at the Monastery of Sant Cugat, just outside the city, where he had fled to escape the persecutions.

The first extant documentation of the diocese begins with Bishop Praetextatus, who is mentioned as being in attendance at the Church Council of Sardica (now the city of Sofia, capital of Bulgaria) in 347 A.D., which was called to address the Arian heresy. He was succeeded as bishop in 360 A.D. by Saint Pacian, a married priest, who is considered one of the Early Church Fathers. Some of his writings have been preserved. St. Pacian was one of those lauded by St. Jerome in his book, “De viris illustribus” written in 392 A.D., about a year after St. Pacian’s death, and dedicated to St. Pacian’s son Dexter.

Some other noteworthy bishops include Saint Nebridius, who ruled from 540 to 547 A.D., and whose three brothers were all saints and bishops in Catalonia. Saint Olegarius ruled from 1116 to 1137, and his shrine is located in Barcelona Cathedral. Despite the long list of bishops, 120 to date, there have not been many Bishops of Barcelona who managed to become canonized saints.

At present the cause of Bishop Manuel Irurita, who ruled the Diocese of Barcelona from 1930 to 1936, is being investigated for possible beatification. Bishop Irurita opposed some of the steps taken by the Leftist government in Barcelona, and was targeted for assassination at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. One of the militiamen who executed the Bishop said that, when the Bishop was brought before the firing squad, he stated, “I bless all of those who are in my presence, as I also bless the bullets that will occasion my death, since they will be the keys that will open the gates of heaven for me.”

Today the Archdiocese continues to struggle against creeping secularism which has decimated the Church in many quarters of the city. Recently Cardinal Sistach, the present Metropolitan Archbishop, had to issue the following press release on April 29, 2009. Although there is no question that Catholic practice has declined in Barcelona, it has not disappeared:

“THERE ARE 845 PLACES OF WORSHIP IN THE CITY OF BARCELONA

Clarification of the Archbishopric of Barcelona with relation to the memo made public by the Office for Religious Affairs, entitled “Catholicism recedes in Barcelona”.

In response to the memo made public by the Office of Religious Affairs of the Barcelona City Government, entitled “Catholicism recedes in Barcelona”, which states that in the city of Barcelona the only existing places of Catholic worship are 141 parishes, this Archbishopric wishes to clarify the following: in the city of Barcelona, there are not just parishes as mentioned in the said memo, but rather the total number of Catholic places of worship, just within the city limits itself, is 845. This figure includes 139 parishes, 121 non-parochial churches, 421 active religious communities with chapels, 23 Catholic cultural centers with chapels, and 141 primary and secondary schools with Catholic chapels.”

The arms of the Metropolitan Archdiocese feature a patriarchal or archdiocesan cross, a lozenge with the arms of Catalonia (four red stripes on a gold background), an x-shaped cross and a Greek Cross – the former for St. Eulalia, indicating the instrument of her martyrdom, and the latter for the Holy Cross, as Barcelona’s Cathedral is named for both.

The present archbishop is Lluís Cardinal Martínez Sistach. Cardinal Sistach was born in Barcelona in 1937, ordained a priest in 1961, and became Auxiliary Bishop of Barcelona in 1987. He later served as Bishop of the city of Alegciras in Andalusia, near Gibraltar, then of the city of Tortosa in southern Catalonia.

In 1997 he was appointed Archbishop of Tarragona, and in 2004 he was appointed Archbishop of Barcelona. He was created a Cardinal at the Consistory of 2007. Cardinal Sistach’s title is Cardinal of St. Sebastian at the Catacombs, and his titular church in Rome is the Basilica of St. Sebastian’s Outside the Walls, one of the original Seven Pilgrim Churches of Rome. He is also a member of several departments of the Curia, including most recently being named by Pope Benedict XVI as a member of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.

Cardinal Sistach’s coat-of-arms is surmounted by his Cardinal’s hat, and features a patriarchal cross. In the upper left corner is an “X” cross with a palm branch, for St. Eulalia of Barcelona. In the upper right corner is a Tau cross, to reflect his former post as Archbishop of Tarragona. At the bottom we see the arms of Montserrat, showing the jagged mountain being hewn with a golden saw. Below this appears the pallium Cardinal Sistach received as a Metropolitan Archbishop. His motto is, “Charitas Christi urget nos”.

Arms of Lluís Cardinal Martínez Sistach,
Present Metropolitan Archbishop of Barcelona

La Seu – Catedral

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La SeuCatedral-Basilica de la Santa Creu i de Santa Eulalia
Built: mainly 1298-1448, with earlier portions/later additions
Founded: 4th Century A.D.
Location: Plaça de La Seu

The Cathedral-Basilica of the Holy Cross and of St. Eulalia of Barcelona, more commonly known as “La Seu”, meaning a bishop’s “see” or “seat”, is of very ancient origin. Bishop Pretextat, who held the office of Bishop of Barcelona from 290 A.D. until his death in 343 A.D., was said to have consecrated the first building to be used as the city’s cathedral. This church stood on the ruins of a temple dedicated to Jupiter, which itself stood on a small hill the Romans had called Mount Jupiter, close to the Roman forum. With the legalization of Christianity under Constantine, the Christians had re-named this hill Mount Tabor; it has been the site of Barcelona’s cathedral ever since its dedication.

Interestingly enough, the remains of this first Christian structure were uncovered during structural foundation work in the 1940’s, and can be visited on a guided tour. As the small building eventually proved to be insufficient for the increasing needs of the diocese, a diocesan council was held in 599 A.D. to plan how to raise funds for the first large cathedral to be built on the hill. During the course of the meetings it was decided that the building would be dedicated to the Holy Cross – which is why a statue of the Empress Helena holding aloft the True Cross stands on the top of the present Cathedral.

Following the Muslim invasions of the 8th century, when Barcelona briefly fell under Islamic rule, the cathedral was turned into a mosque. When the Franks took Barcelona back from the Muslims in 801 A.D., the Mosque was either significantly damaged or destroyed, and plans for a new cathedral to replace it were made. In 877 A.D., when the new cathedral was completed, the relics of Saint Eulalia were transferred to the building from the church of Our Lady of the Sands, the church that was the precursor of the Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar. In honor of this acquisition, the diocese decided to name St. Eulalia as co-patroness of the cathedral.

Unfortunately, this cathedral was destroyed by Al-Mansur during the Muslim raids of 985 A.D. A Romanesque-style building, with a central nave and two side aisles, was begun in 1046, and work had sufficiently progressed to allow its consecration in 1058. However as Barcelona’s empire expanded, it soon became clear to the diocese and to the monarchy that the scale of the building was not grand enough for an imperial capital. Scholars are not certain whether or not this Romanesque structure was ever fully completed, although parts of this building – such as elements of the Portal of Saint Ives, with its amusing scenes of men battling mythological beasts – were incorporated into the grand Catalan Gothic Cathedral which was begun in 1298.

The bulk of the new cathedral, much larger than its predecessors, was completed around 1448, but as occurred in other cities such as Florence, funds for finishing the facade of the West Front ran out before the building could be completed. As a result, other than the twin octagonal bell towers at the back of the building, the Cathedral was without a public face on its main square for about 400 years. Fortunately, by the time Barcelona’s fortunes revived in the 19th century, the original Medieval plans of 1408 for the Cathedral facade had been preserved, and were used to execute the West Front as it stands today, exactly as had been intended.

The Cathedral was raised to the status of a Minor Basilica in 1867 by Blessed Pope Pius IX. During the Civil War the Cathedral suffered some minor vandalism, as well as bombing damage to the roof from both sides in the fighting, but generally speaking was left in good shape compared to most of the other churches in the city. As a result many of the Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque altarpieces and shrines inside the Cathedral were preserved, as well as some of the royal tombs on the site.

Some of the significant highlights of the Cathedral are:

The Shrine of Saint Eulalia
This 13th century alabaster and marble sarcophagus on columns, located in the magnificent crypt directly below the main altar, is speculated by some art historians to be the work of one of the Pisano family, or at the very least by one of their pupils.

The Christ of Lepanto
In the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of Perpetual Adoration, to the right as one enters the Cathedral, is a large wooden crucifix which was carried on the flagship of Don Juan of Austria at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. Pious tradition says that the reason the corpus leans to the side to such an exaggerated degree is that at the beginning of the battle, the Turks fired a cannonball at it, and the figure leaned to the side to avoid being struck. This encouraged the Hapsburg side, which ultimately defeated the Muslim invaders.

The Shrine of Saint Raymond of Penyafort
The great Dominican saint is buried in the Cathedral, inside a spectacular Gothic gilded sarcophagus supported on columns with the effigy of the saint displayed underneath in black and white marble.

– The Choir of the Golden Fleece
Like many Gothic cathedrals, the choir at La Seu sits in the nave, a little more than halfway to the crossing. While the marble sculptures and architectural details that make up the choir are impressive, the real interest for many visitors are the choir stalls themselves. A meeting was held in the Cathedral of the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1519, and in honor of the occasion the backs of the seats in the choir were painted with the coat-of-arms of the European monarch who was to sit there – rather like putting a place card on the table at a dinner party. One of these bears the arms of King Henry VIII of England, obviously from the period before he went off the rails.

– The Cloister
The beautiful garden cloister of the Cathedral, completed around 1450, is home to a number of tombs and chapels. It is also home to a flock of 13 white geese. White geese have always been kept in the cathedral, although no one knows exactly why. The general consensus is that these are the descendants of the Capitoline Geese, kept in the Temple of Jupiter which originally stood on the site, and that the number 13 stands for the age of Saint Eulalia when she was martyred by the Emperor Diocletian in 303 A.D. Also in the cloister is a Medieval fountain dedicated to St. George, patron saint of Barcelona; every Corpus Christi a hollowed-out egg is placed on the stream of water jetting up from the statue, and children are taken to marvel at how it dances on the spray.

Santa Maria del Mar

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Basilica-Església de Santa Maria del Mar
Built: 1329-1383
Founded: Before 998 A.D.
Function: Parish church; minor basilica
Address: Plaça de Santa Maria

The magnificent 14th century Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar is, without question, the finest Gothic church in Barcelona, a city resplendent with Gothic buildings. It has been celebrated since its construction by the faithful, architects, writers, and artists as a miracle of light, geometry, and tranquility for nearly 700 years. However, the history of the parish is much older, and just as interesting as the building itself.

Between 300 and 500 A.D., the site of the basilica was a Roman cemetery outside the city walls; vestiges of the catacombs and tombs were re-discovered in the 1960s during restoration work on the foundations of the present building. Barcelona’s patron saint, St. Eulalia, was buried here after her martyrdom in approximately 303 A.D. Following the legalization of Christianity, devotion to her grew and her relics were preserved in a succession of churches on the site until they were transferred to the Cathedral.

The first documentary evidence for a church on the site dedicated to St. Mary of the Sea dates from 998 A.D., though when this structure was built and what it looked like remains unknown. What is known is that in 1324, the idea for a new and larger church began to take hold. The cornerstone for the present building was laid on March 25, 1329, the Feast of the Annunciation, by King Alfons the Pious. In an extraordinary effort for its time, combining donations of time and treasure from all of the local guilds, parishioners, the crown, and the diocese, construction proceeded so quickly that the church came into regular use by 1350, and the final stone was laid on November 3, 1383, with the formal dedication mass taking place on the Feast of the Assumption the following year.

Because of the comparatively rapid time frame in which it was built, and because the 14th century marked the height of Barcelona’s empire, wealth, and artistic achievement during the Middle Ages, there is a remarkable architectural unity in the completed building. Most large Gothic churches throughout Europe took centuries to build, and often ended up in a hodgepodge of different styles. Because it only took 54 years to build Santa Maria del Mar, the end result is wonderfully harmonious, strongly influenced by the clean-lined, geometric Cistercian Gothic popular in France and in Northern Spain during this period.

What most strikes visitors upon entering the building is the vast and austere interior space, beautifully lit by clerestory windows and supported only by slender octagonal columns; it is universally regarded as a marvel of engineering. Part of the reason for the cleanliness of the interior is that the church was burned, like many others, by the Leftists during the Spanish Civil War in 1936. The fire destroyed many of the altarpieces and statuary that had been placed in the church over the centuries, particularly during the Baroque and Neo-Gothic periods in the 18th and 19th centuries. The end result was, ironically enough, that Santa Maria del Mar emerged from the ashes more beautiful than she had been in years, stripped of well-intentioned but tacky frills and do-dads that did not suit her.