Ezquioga
Encyclopedia
Ezquioga, also called Ezkioga, now Ezkio, is a small town, part of the municipality of Ezquioga-Ichaso since 1965, now Ezkio-Itsaso
, in the Spanish
province
of Guipúzcoa or Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country
. It is most famous for alleged Marian apparitions
, controversial public visions
of the Virgin Mary starting in 1931.
was declared after anti-monarchist candidates won elections in urban areas throughout Spain, King Alfonso XIII of Spain
abdicated. Many of the new government were Socialist or otherwise anti-clerical. However this did not spread to the religious Basque Country
. In the elections on June 28, rightist coalitions won handily in Gipuzkoa and Navarra.
On April 23, 1931, children playing in Torralba de Aragón
, in Huesca
, saw and heard what they thought was the figure of the Virgin Mary inside the church, saying "Do not mistreat my son.". Catholic newspapers reported this vision throughout Spain. The child seers of Ezkioga allegedly read the Basque version in Argia
, on May 5, 1931. On June 4, 12 girls and a boy, between 9 and 14 years old, saw an "unearthly" woman in mourning accompanied by a bright light in a church in the Basque town of Mendigorría
.
It also draw a certain amount of attention among the Catholics of Catalonia.
The official church, on the other hand, soon turned against the seers. At the invitation of the diocese, Jose Antonio Laburu, a Jesuit, preached against the "mental contagion" of the Ezquioga visions at San Sebastian in April and June 1932, contrasting them against the "true" visions of Teresa of Avila
and Thomas Aquinas
. Similarly the Republican government tried to suppress the visions.
Rumor had it that the President Manuel Azaña
had sent Dr Gregorio Marañón
(then vacationing at San Sebastián
) to investigate.
In the fall of 1932, Pedro del Pozo Rodríguez, the governor of Gipuzkoa, briefly interned those who claimed to see visions at the provincial psychiatric hospital of Santa Águeda, Mondragón
. The visions became a taboo subject in the region, and the visionaries went underground, meeting in small groups with loyal followers.
In 1936, the Spanish Civil War
came.
It was not among Catholic and non-Catholics as many Ezquioga followers had expected: the Catholic Basque nationalists took the side of the Republic, while the also Catholic Navarrese Carlists took the side of the Francoist
rebellion.
Nevertheless, the Ezquioga visionaries keep meeting in secret and they were still doing so seventy years later.
Walter Starkie
visited Ezquioga during the zenith of the apparitions and spent a whole chapter of his book Spanish Raggle-Taggle on them.
He concluded quite convinced that the tradition
alist and right-wing groups were using the Ezquioga events politically against the irreligious republic.
William A. Christian, Jr., wrote a detailed and influential study of the event, Visionaries: The Spanish Republic and the Reign of Christ, ISBN 0-520-21948-1, published in 1996.
A Spanish language film
titled Visionarios, in 2001, directed and written by
Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón
, and starring Eduardo Noriega
, Leire Ucha, and Ingrid Rubio
dramatized the event. The plot is that Joshe, a young man from Ezkioga is torn between two women who each claim to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary on a nearby hillside. Meanwhile the town is overwhelmed by outsiders seeking to share or exploit the girls’ miraculous vision.
Ezkio-Itsaso
Ezkio-Itsaso is a town located in the province of Gipuzkoa, in the Autonomous Community of Basque Country, in northern Spain.It is a rural, idyllic place founded in 1965 by the fusion of the municipalities of Ezkio and Itsaso...
, in the Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
province
Provinces of Spain
Spain and its autonomous communities are divided into fifty provinces .In other languages of Spain:*Catalan/Valencian , sing. província.*Galician , sing. provincia.*Basque |Galicia]] — are not also the capitals of provinces...
of Guipúzcoa or Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country
Basque Country (autonomous community)
The Basque Country is an autonomous community of northern Spain. It includes the Basque provinces of Álava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa, also called Historical Territories....
. It is most famous for alleged Marian apparitions
Marian apparitions
A Marian apparition is an event in which the Blessed Virgin Mary is believed to have supernaturally appeared to one or more people. They are often given names based on the town in which they were reported, or on the sobriquet which was given to Mary on the occasion of the apparition...
, controversial public visions
Vision (religion)
In spirituality, a vision is something seen in a dream, trance, or ecstasy, especially a supernatural appearance that conveys a revelation.Visions generally have more clarity than dreams, but traditionally fewer psychological connotations...
of the Virgin Mary starting in 1931.
Location
Ezquioga is a dispersed farming township located at Latitude 43° 4' 60N, Longitude 2° 16' 0W, at an altitude of 555 meters above sea level, in the Goiherri region. There are no large cities nearby; Zumarraga, Spain, a nearby town, had a population of 10,265 in 2000.Background
On April 14, 1931, the Second Spanish RepublicSecond Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
was declared after anti-monarchist candidates won elections in urban areas throughout Spain, King Alfonso XIII of Spain
Alfonso XIII of Spain
Alfonso XIII was King of Spain from 1886 until 1931. His mother, Maria Christina of Austria, was appointed regent during his minority...
abdicated. Many of the new government were Socialist or otherwise anti-clerical. However this did not spread to the religious Basque Country
Basque Country (autonomous community)
The Basque Country is an autonomous community of northern Spain. It includes the Basque provinces of Álava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa, also called Historical Territories....
. In the elections on June 28, rightist coalitions won handily in Gipuzkoa and Navarra.
On April 23, 1931, children playing in Torralba de Aragón
Torralba de Aragón
Torralba de Aragón is a municipality located in the province of Huesca, Aragon, Spain. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 115 inhabitants....
, in Huesca
Huesca
Huesca is a city in north-eastern Spain, within the autonomous community of Aragon. It is also the capital of the Spanish province of the same name and the comarca of Hoya de Huesca....
, saw and heard what they thought was the figure of the Virgin Mary inside the church, saying "Do not mistreat my son.". Catholic newspapers reported this vision throughout Spain. The child seers of Ezkioga allegedly read the Basque version in Argia
Argia
For other uses of the word Argia see Argia Argia is a genus of damselflies of the family Coenagrionidae and of the subfamily Argiinae. It is a diverse genus which contains about 114 species and many more to be described. It is also the largest genus in Argiinae. They are found in the Western...
, on May 5, 1931. On June 4, 12 girls and a boy, between 9 and 14 years old, saw an "unearthly" woman in mourning accompanied by a bright light in a church in the Basque town of Mendigorría
Mendigorría
Mendigorría is a town and municipality located in the province and autonomous community of Navarre, northern Spain. The Battle of Mendigorría took place here in 1835.-External links:*...
.
Ezquioga visions
On 29 June 1931, a brother and sister of the Bereciartua family, ages 7 and 11, monolingual Basque speakers, claimed to have seen the Virgin in a black mantle on a hillside known as Anduaga above a church and school in Ezquioga. Their own father didn't believe them, but hundreds of others came to the hillside to see for themselves. Eventually hundreds of thousands of devout worshipers, mostly Basques, came to Ezquioga expecting visions, and hundreds did. On the nights of July 12, 16, and 18, and October 16, up to eighty thousand persons turned out. In the first month there were over a hundred alleged seers, and occasional visions continued until the fall of 1933. Seers described blinding light, convulsed, many fell unconscious, and some bled. In 1933, as a kind of escalation against negative reaction against the visionaries, bleeding crucifixes were reported around Ezquioga.Reactions
Many rightist Basque nationalists, preparing for a civil war against the Republic, supported the visionaries, believing the visions were a sign that the Virgin Mary supported them.It also draw a certain amount of attention among the Catholics of Catalonia.
The official church, on the other hand, soon turned against the seers. At the invitation of the diocese, Jose Antonio Laburu, a Jesuit, preached against the "mental contagion" of the Ezquioga visions at San Sebastian in April and June 1932, contrasting them against the "true" visions of Teresa of Avila
Teresa of Ávila
Saint Teresa of Ávila, also called Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada, was a prominent Spanish mystic, Roman Catholic saint, Carmelite nun, and writer of the Counter Reformation, and theologian of contemplative life through mental prayer...
and Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...
. Similarly the Republican government tried to suppress the visions.
Rumor had it that the President Manuel Azaña
Manuel Azaña
Manuel Azaña Díaz was a Spanish politician. He was the first Prime Minister of the Second Spanish Republic , and later served again as Prime Minister , and then as the second and last President of the Republic . The Spanish Civil War broke out while he was President...
had sent Dr Gregorio Marañón
Gregorio Marañón
Gregorio Marañón y Posadillo was a Spanish physician, scientist, historian, writer and philosopher. He married Dolores Moya in 1911, they had four children ....
(then vacationing at San Sebastián
San Sebastián
Donostia-San Sebastián is a city and municipality located in the north of Spain, in the coast of the Bay of Biscay and 20 km away from the French border. The city is the capital of Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. The municipality’s population is 186,122 , and its...
) to investigate.
In the fall of 1932, Pedro del Pozo Rodríguez, the governor of Gipuzkoa, briefly interned those who claimed to see visions at the provincial psychiatric hospital of Santa Águeda, Mondragón
Mondragón
Arrasate or Mondragón - is a town and municipality in Gipuzkoa province, Basque Country, Spain...
. The visions became a taboo subject in the region, and the visionaries went underground, meeting in small groups with loyal followers.
In 1936, the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
came.
It was not among Catholic and non-Catholics as many Ezquioga followers had expected: the Catholic Basque nationalists took the side of the Republic, while the also Catholic Navarrese Carlists took the side of the Francoist
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
rebellion.
Nevertheless, the Ezquioga visionaries keep meeting in secret and they were still doing so seventy years later.
Works
The Irish Catholic HispanistHispanist
A Hispanist is a scholar specialising in Hispanic studies, that is Spanish or Portuguese language, literature, linguistics, or civilization, and by extension, Basque, Catalan and Galician....
Walter Starkie
Walter Starkie
Walter Fitzwilliam Starkie CMG, CBE, Litt.D was an Irish scholar, Hispanist, author and musician.Born in Killiney, County Dublin, he was the eldest son of the noted Greek scholar and translator of Aristophanes, William Joseph Myles Starkie and May Caroline Walsh. Starkie grew up surrounded by...
visited Ezquioga during the zenith of the apparitions and spent a whole chapter of his book Spanish Raggle-Taggle on them.
He concluded quite convinced that the tradition
Tradition
A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...
alist and right-wing groups were using the Ezquioga events politically against the irreligious republic.
William A. Christian, Jr., wrote a detailed and influential study of the event, Visionaries: The Spanish Republic and the Reign of Christ, ISBN 0-520-21948-1, published in 1996.
A Spanish language film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
titled Visionarios, in 2001, directed and written by
Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón
Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón
Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón is an award-winning Spanish screenwriter and film director. His 1973 film Habla, mudita was entered into the 23rd Berlin International Film Festival. In 1977, he won the Silver Bear for Best Director for Camada negra at the 27th Berlin International Film Festival...
, and starring Eduardo Noriega
Eduardo Noriega (Spanish actor)
Eduardo Noriega Gómez is a Spanish film actor, perhaps best known for his roles in two Alejandro Amenábar films, the multiple Goya Award-winning Tesis and Open Your Eyes . He also starred in The Wolf...
, Leire Ucha, and Ingrid Rubio
Ingrid Rubio
Ingrid Rubio is one of the top actresses in Spanish language cinema. She won the Special Mention Awad at the 1996 San Sebastián International Film Festival for her performance in the film Taxi....
dramatized the event. The plot is that Joshe, a young man from Ezkioga is torn between two women who each claim to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary on a nearby hillside. Meanwhile the town is overwhelmed by outsiders seeking to share or exploit the girls’ miraculous vision.
See also
- Unbe, a mount location in Biscay with a similar unofficial cult of Marian apparitions.
External links
- Ezkio and Ezquioga (Ezkioga: Las apariciones) at the Spanish-language Auñamendi Encyclopedia.