From the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936, Republican-zone militias, anarchist and revolutionary committees and, in places, units acting under the nominal authority of the Republican government itself killed 6,832 Catholic clergy and religious in one of the most extensive anticlerical campaigns in modern history: 13 bishops, 4,172 diocesan priests and seminarians, 2,364 monks and friars, and 283 nuns. The killing was heaviest in the war's first months: 50 churches were burned in Madrid alone on 19 July 1936, and whole dioceses lost the great majority of their clergy within weeks, 123 of 140 priests killed at Barbastro and 270 of 410 at Lleida. The historian Stanley G. Payne called it the most extensive and violent persecution of Catholicism in Western history, more intense even than the French Revolution's. Beatifications of individual victims began under Pope John Paul II in 1987 and have continued since, with 1,725 Spanish martyrs of the period beatified as of recent counts.
Facts
Consequences
What It SettledSourced to the subject's own accountThe killing of clergy tapered as the war stabilized and Francisco Franco's Nationalist forces gradually took Republican territory, ending with the Nationalist victory in April 1939; Franco's subsequent White Terror against the defeated Republican side is a separate campaign, estimated by the historian Antony Beevor at around 200,000 deaths against his estimate of 38,000 for the Red Terror overall (other historians' full Red Terror estimates, covering all victims rather than clergy alone, range from Hugh Thomas and Paul Preston's 55,000 up to Cesar Vidal's 110,965; this atlas records only the specifically clerical, diocese-documented 6,832 figure as its death toll and names the wider, undocumented-to-a-single-figure Red Terror total here rather than merging the two). The Catholic Church has continued a formal beatification process for individual victims since 1987, and the period remains the subject of dedicated historical scholarship, notably by the Spanish Curia historian Vicente Carcel Orti. 2 Death TollSourced to the subject's own accountThe widely cited, diocese-documented clerical death toll: 13 bishops, 4,172 diocesan priests and seminarians, 2,364 monks and friars and 283 nuns, drawn from Church and academic martyrology record-keeping conducted diocese by diocese. This figure counts clergy and religious specifically, not the much larger and far less settled estimates for the whole Red Terror's lay and clerical victims together, which range from 38,000 to 110,965 across different historians and are named in the entity-outcome fact rather than merged in here. Death TollSourced to the subject's own accountThe same firm clerical figure as death-toll-min: a single documented count, not a range, and specific to clergy and religious rather than the wider and undocumented-to-a-single-figure Red Terror total. The Event
When It HappenedSourced to the subject's own accountJuly 1936 to April 1939, with the most intensive killing in the first weeks and months of the war, July and August 1936. 1 PeriodSourced to the subject's own account Principal PartiesSourced to the subject's own accountNo single named commander directed the campaign nationally; it was carried out by decentralized militia, anarchist and revolutionary committee action across Republican Spain. The historian Vicente Carcel Orti, who worked within the Church's own Curia, is the principal scholarly documenter of the episode; Pope John Paul II opened the formal beatification process for individual clerical victims in 1987. 2 Victim GroupSourced to the subject's own accountSpain's Catholic clergy and religious in Republican-held territory: 13 bishops, 4,172 diocesan priests and seminarians, 2,364 monks and friars, and 283 nuns, for a total of 6,832 documented deaths, an estimated one-fifth of the nation's Catholic clergy. Some dioceses lost the great majority of their priests within weeks: 88 percent at Barbastro, 66 percent at Lleida. 1 Perpetrator RegimeSourced to the subject's own accountRepublican-zone militias, anarchist and revolutionary committees, and, in places, units nominally under the nascent Republican government's own authority, acting in the name of a revolutionary and anticlerical political programme rather than a competing religious tradition. Neither Anarchism nor Communism is a registered religious tradition in this atlas, so no perpetrator-tradition edge is written; the campaign is recorded as a bureaucratic and political persecution rather than a rival-tradition one. 1 Status
Official RecognitionSourced to the subject's own accountNot formally recognized by any body 2 Recognition BasisSourced to the subject's own accountNo modern Spanish government or international body has issued a formal genocide or crimes-against-humanity determination naming the anticlerical killings specifically; Spain's post-Franco settlement, including the 1977 Amnesty Law, has generally avoided formal state judicial reckonings with civil-war-era violence on either side. Recognition has instead run through the Catholic Church's own beatification process, begun in 1987 and continuing with 1,725 Spanish martyrs of the period beatified as of recent counts, and through the sustained academic martyrology scholarship the episode has produced, notably Vicente Carcel Orti's work as a Curia historian. 2 In Other Languages (16 names)
- الإرهاب الأحمر (إسبانيا)
- Чырвоны тэрор у Іспаніі
- Terror Roig (Espanya)
- Terror Rojo (España)
- وحشت سرخ (اسپانیا)
- Terreur rouge (Espagne)
- Crveni teror u Španjolskoj
- Կարմիր ահաբեկչություն (Իսպանիա)
- Teror Roja
- Czerwony terror w Hiszpanii
- Terror Vermelho (Espanha)
- Красный террор (Испания)
- Црвени терор (Шпанија)
- Kızıl Terör (İspanya)
- Червоний терор в Іспанії
- 红色恐怖 (西班牙)
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
The targeted tradition. This is an Associated With edge to the tradition that was persecuted, not a perpetrator-tradition edge; the perpetrators acted under a revolutionary political programme, not a rival religious tradition.
Spain, Countries The killings took place across Republican-held Spain during the civil war.
Sources
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