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Spain

Also Known As Spanish
Europe

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Spain's religious history is defined by centuries of Muslim rule in al-Andalus, ended by the Christian Reconquista completed in 1492, the same year that Spain's Jewish population was expelled by royal decree, a rupture that ended one of medieval Europe's most significant centers of Jewish, Muslim and Christian intellectual exchange. The Alhambra in Granada and the Great Mosque of Cordoba, later converted into a cathedral, survive as monuments to that Islamic period, and Santiago de Compostela remains one of Christianity's major pilgrimage destinations along the Camino routes that still draw walkers from across Europe. Spain remains predominantly Catholic in nominal affiliation, though the Spanish Inquisition's historical persecution of converted Jews and Muslims suspected of secretly retaining their former faiths is a documented and formative episode in the country's religious history. Active religious practice has declined substantially since the end of the Franco era, when Catholicism was the state religion.

Facts
Law and State
Establishment Status
Disestablished 3
The 1978 constitution disestablished Catholicism as official state religion while acknowledging the Catholic Church's particular social role.
State Funding Mechanism
Spain funds the Catholic Church through a tax designation rather than a direct budget line. Under the framework of the 1979 Economic Affairs Agreement between Spain and the Holy See, and since a reform effective from the 2007 tax year, an income tax filer may mark a box on the annual return directing 0.7 percent of their total tax liability to the Catholic Church, at no additional cost beyond the tax already owed; the same filer may separately direct the same 0.7 percent to activities of general social interest, both, or neither, in which case the undesignated share reverts to general state revenue. Before 2007 the Church instead received a direct annual budget allocation and held certain value added tax exemptions it renounced as part of the same reform. 4
Apostasy or Blasphemy Law
Spain's Penal Code, Article 525, still criminalizes publicly deriding a religion's dogmas, beliefs, rituals or ceremonies, or publicly mistreating those who practice it, in order to offend religious feelings, punishable by a fine of eight to twelve months' salary; the same article punishes public derision of people who confess no religion. Prosecutions have been brought in recent years by the Spanish Association of Christian Lawyers and the Tomas Moro Legal Center, a Catholic legal association. 5
Registration or Recognition Regime
The state maintains separate cooperation agreements with Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim bodies. 3
Concordat Basis
Four Agreements between Spain and the Holy See, signed in Vatican City on 3 January 1979: on legal affairs, on economic affairs, on education and cultural matters, and on religious assistance to Catholics in the armed forces and military service for clergy. They replaced most of the 1953 Concordat to adapt church and state relations to the 1978 Constitution's declaration that Spain has no official religion. The legal affairs agreement was ratified 4 December 1979 and published in the official gazette on 15 December 1979. 6
Demographics
Religious Composition
About 55-60% Catholic; religiously unaffiliated approaching a third of the population; small Muslim, Protestant and other communities (Pew Research Center, Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020). 1
Geography
Latitude
40.5 degrees north 2
Approximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a country's extent has no single center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a survey measurement.
Longitude
3.7 degrees west 2
Approximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a country's extent has no single center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a survey measurement.
Government
Capital
Madrid 2
Government Type
parliamentary constitutional monarchy 2
Sovereignty Status
Sovereign UN member state 2
Established Year
1492 2
1492
Status
Legal Status
The 1978 constitution disestablished Catholicism as official state religion while acknowledging the Catholic Church's particular social role; the state maintains separate cooperation agreements with Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim bodies. 3
Location
Location of Spain Afghanistan Albania Algeria Angola Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cabo Verde Cambodia Cameroon Canada Chile China Colombia Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia Federated States of Micronesia Fiji Finland France French Polynesia Gabon Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Guam Guatemala Haiti Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Ivory Coast Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kuwait Laos Latvia Lebanon Libya Lithuania Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Mali Malta Mauritius Mexico Moldova Mongolia Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nigeria North Macedonia Norway Oman Pakistan Palestine Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands South Africa South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tanzania Thailand Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe
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Religion and History in Spain

Spain remains majority Catholic, around 55 to 60 percent by most estimates including Pew Research's Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020, though religiously unaffiliated Spaniards now form a substantial minority approaching a third of the population, alongside small Muslim, Protestant and other communities. Spain's medieval history was shaped profoundly by Al-Andalus, the Muslim-ruled territory established after the 711 conquest that at its height encompassed most of the Iberian Peninsula and produced a sophisticated Islamic civilization in cities such as Cordoba, where the Mezquita, built as a mosque from 785 and converted into a cathedral after the 1236 Christian reconquest, remains among the most striking monuments of that layered religious history.

The Reconquista, the centuries-long Christian reconquest completed with Granada's fall in 1492, was followed the same year by the expulsion of Spain's Jewish population under the Alhambra Decree and, later, forced conversions and the eventual 1609 to 1614 expulsion of the Moriscos, Muslims who had nominally converted to Christianity, moves the Spanish Inquisition, established in 1478, enforced with particular severity against conversos suspected of secretly retaining their former faiths.

The Inquisition's Legacy and Franco-Era National Catholicism

The Spanish Inquisition, operating from 1478 until its formal abolition in 1834, policed religious orthodoxy for over three centuries, targeting conversos, Moriscos and later Protestants and other perceived heretics with interrogation, torture and public execution by burning at the stake in autos-da-fe, leaving a lasting historical association between Spanish state power and religious enforcement.

Under Francisco Franco's dictatorship from 1939 to 1975, Catholicism was declared Spain's official religion and National Catholicism became a pillar of state ideology, granting the Church extensive control over education, marriage law and public morality while banning Protestant worship and other minority religious practice in public; the 1953 concordat with the Holy See cemented this arrangement, though a 1967 law under pressure from the Second Vatican Council's reforms introduced limited toleration for other faiths. Since Spain's transition to democracy after Franco's death, the 1978 constitution disestablished Catholicism as official state religion while acknowledging the Catholic Church's particular social role, and Spain has since become one of Europe's more socially liberal Catholic-majority countries, legalizing same-sex marriage in 2005 and maintaining formal cooperation agreements with the Catholic Church, Protestant federations, Jewish and Muslim communities alike.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

This source names Spain directly: "of the Reconquista's aftermath in Spain: the Christian reconquest of al Andalus completed at Granada in 1492, the forced conversion of Spain's remaining Muslims into the Moriscos, and their eventual..."

This source names Spain directly: "to Iran, Iraq, Tunisia, Sicily and Spain; a Kairouan, Tunisia origin under Fatimid patronage is the attribution most often repeated in recent scholarship, following Jonathan Bloom's reassessment..."

Source Two Folios from the Blue Qur'an, AKM477 (Aga Khan Museum)Aga Khan Museum, catalogue entry

This source names Spain directly: "under persecution from Habsburg Spain, and its adherents first organised themselves at the Synod of Emden in October 1571, a gathering of twenty-nine exiled Calvinist leaders in the German town..."

About 55 to 60% Catholic, following the Reconquista completed in 1492.

Source Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020Pew Research Center

This source names Spain directly: "after the events he describes, from Spain rather than Peru, and with an evident wish to present Inca civilization favorably to a European audience, so his account should be read as a genuinely..."

This source names Spain directly: "against the rule of King Philip II of Spain, beginning with the 1566 iconoclastic riots against Catholic church imagery and the 1568 executions of the Counts of Egmont and Horn, and running through..."

Source The Dutch Revolt (Parker)Geoffrey Parker

This source names Spain directly: "dividing New World territory between Spain and Portugal, that shaped European colonial claims in the Americas."

This source names Spain directly: "article on the history of the Jews in Spain, community-edited."

Source History Of The Jews In Spain (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Spain directly: "one severely enough to be recalled to Spain, and the resulting theological and legal debate over the justice of the conquest and the moral status of indigenous peoples ran on for decades at the..."

He lived in Andalusia from 1560 until his death in 1616, and wrote the Comentarios reales there.

This source names Spain directly: "founding by Austria, Saudi Arabia and Spain, its Holy See founding observer status, its 2022 move to Lisbon and its religion-representative Board of Directors."

Source KAICIID Dialogue Centre (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Spain directly: "it, which was itself a defense of Spain against the Legend rather than neutral historical analysis."

Source La leyenda negra y la verdad historicaJulian Juderias

This source names Spain directly: "friars in sixteenth century New Spain, who adapted an existing Catholic novena into a dramatized, participatory form for catechizing an Indigenous population."

Source Death and the Idea of MexicoClaudio Lomnitz

This source names Spain directly: "of Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492, without requiring renunciation of an applicant's existing citizenship."

Moriscos, Cultures

This source names Spain directly: "The Moriscos were Spain's Muslim population and their descendants after forced conversion to Christianity, ordered in Castile in 1502 and in the Crown of Aragon in 1526."

Source Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614L.P. Harvey

This source names Spain directly: "the Basilica de Santa Maria in Elche, Spain, dramatizing the death, assumption into heaven and coronation of the Virgin Mary."

Source Mystery Play of Elche (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Spain directly: "Catholic Church, founded in Madrid, Spain, on October 2, 1928, by the priest Josemaria Escriva."

Source Opus Dei (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Spain directly: "Latin translators in twelfth-century Spain gave that as pars, which is why the same points are called lots in Greek sources and parts in the later tradition."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Spain directly: "medieval halakhists and kabbalists of Spain and the Near East, the Hasidic masters of Eastern Europe, and the modern founders of Reform, Positive-Historical and Humanistic Judaism."

The centuries-long Christian reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from Muslim rule, 711 to 1492, ending at Granada in the kingdoms that became Spain.

Source Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval SpainJoseph F. O'Callaghan

This source names Spain directly: "A nearly 800 page report by Spain's Defensor del Pueblo (the national Ombudsman, a constitutional office reporting to Parliament), presented to the Speaker of the Congress of Deputies on 23 October..."

Source Report on Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church and the Role of Public Authorities (Defensor del Pueblo)Angel Gabilondo, Defensor del Pueblo (Spanish Ombudsman)

This source names Spain directly: "Routes of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, covering the Camino Frances and the Routes of Northern Spain, inscribed in 2015 in extension of the 1993 original listing."

This source names Spain directly: "Carried out of Spain after the 1492 expulsion, it surfaced in Italy by the sixteenth century and was purchased by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo in 1894."

Source National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo Haggadah Catalogue RecordNational Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovinathe holders' own account

This source names Spain directly: "and Britain and also in France and Spain."

Source Sheela-na-gigs: Unravelling an EnigmaBarbara Freitag

This source names Spain directly: "a demonstrated special connection to Spain, an application window originally three years from October 1, 2015 and later extended to September 2021, and roughly 132,000 applications received by the..."

Source Spanish Nationality Law (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Spain directly: "the university at Alcala de Henares, Spain, whose Latin name, Complutum, gives the edition its title."

This source names Spain directly: "Parker was a leading historian of early modern Spain and the Dutch Revolt."

Source The Dutch Revolt (Parker)Geoffrey Parker

Decreed by the Spanish crown and carried out simultaneously across Spain and its entire overseas empire.

This source names Spain directly: "The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, published by the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization in 2002, is a scholarly history of the 1492 expulsion, written by a leading historian of Sephardic Jewry..."

Source The Expulsion of the Jews from SpainHaim Beinart

This source names Spain directly: "own defenders in Provence and Spain."

Source Maimonides: Life and ThoughtMoshe Halbertal

The Spanish Inquisition ran from 1478 to 1834, directed first at conversos and later at moriscos, mystics and forbidden books.

This source names Spain directly: "independent Maya kingdom, conquered by Spain only in 1697, built from Spanish colonial documents together with ethnohistorical and archaeological evidence."

This source names Spain directly: "scholarly history of Jewish life in Spain and of the Sephardic diaspora that followed the 1492 expulsion."

This source names Spain directly: "scholar and translator based in Spain, and this Lutterworth Press book is the first English language study of the Sudarium of Oviedo, the cloth traditionally venerated as having covered Jesus's face..."

Source The Oviedo ClothMark Guscin

The killings took place across Republican-held Spain during the civil war.

This source names Spain directly: "Kamen is a historian of early modern Spain who bases the argument on statistical analysis of the tribunal's own case records rather than on the polemical accounts, largely Protestant and..."

This source names Spain directly: "Fausto Elhuyar isolated the metal in Spain in 1783."

A surviving Umayyad founded an emirate at Cordoba in 756 and began the great mosque in 785; his line took the caliphal title in 929.

Conducted

Contains

Originated Here

Basques, Cultures

Born at Sahagun in Leon and trained at Salamanca before joining the Franciscans.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors

Born in Castile and professed as a Franciscan before sailing for Yucatan in 1549.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors

Spain is the land of Sepharad, from the Cordoban golden age to the 1492 expulsion.

The edict of Ferdinand and Isabella gave the Jews of Castile and Aragon four months to convert or leave. It was issued in the year Granada fell.

Source Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd editionMichael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.)

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Sources
1. Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020
Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 2025View the Source
2. The World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency)
Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence AgencyView the Source
3. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024View the Source
4. Agencia Tributaria: Asignacion Tributaria a la Iglesia Catolica
Agencia Tributaria (Spanish Tax Agency)View the Source
5. International Religious Freedom Report
United States Department of State, Office of International Religious Freedom, US Department of State, 2023View the Source
6. Boletin Oficial del Estado, Instrumento de Ratificacion del Acuerdo entre el Estado Espanol y la Santa Sede sobre Asuntos Juridicos (BOE-A-1979-29489)
Government of Spain, Boletin Oficial del Estado (Official Gazette of Spain), 1979View the Source
The Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition
Oxford University Press, Oxford University Pressdemonym / adjectival formView the Source
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