Religion in Portugal - History

History

As in most provinces of the Roman Empire, the religious beliefs and deities of the Pre-Roman populations mingled and coexisted with Roman mythology. In the Portuguese case, those Pre-Roman religions where basically Proto-Celtic or Celtic, chief amongst them that of the Lusitanians' (see Lusitanian mythology).

Jewish populations have existed on the area, back to the Roman era, or even before and is directly related to Sephardi history.

The Roman Provinces of Lusitania (comprising most of Portugal south of the Douro river) and of Gallaecia (north of the Douro river) were first Christianized while part of the Roman Empire. During this period, Bracara Augusta (the modern city of Braga) became one of the most important episcopal centres, alongside Santiago de Compostela. Christianity was solidified when the Suevi and the Visigoths — Germanic tribes already Christianized — came into the Iberian Peninsula in the fifth century.

Early Visigoths followed the Arian heresy, but they joined Roman mainstream after the eighth century. The city of Braga played an important role in the religious history of the period, namely when of the renunciation of the Arian and Priscillianist heresies, at two synods held there in the sixth century, marking the origin of its ecclesiastical greatness. The Archbishops of Braga retains the title of Primate of Portugal, and long claimed supremacy over the whole of the churches of Hispania.

Braga had an important role in the Christianization of the whole Iberian Peninsula. The first known bishop of Braga, Paternus, lived in the end of the fourth century, although Saint Ovidius (d. 135 AD) is sometimes considered one of the first bishops of this city. In the early fifth century, Paulus Orosius, a friend of Saint Augustine, born in Braga, wrote several theological and historical works of great importance. In the sixth century, a great figure was Saint Martin of Braga, a bishop of Braga who converted the Suevi from Arianism to Catholicism. He also founded an important monastery near Braga, in Dumio (Dume), now an archaeological site. Several Ecumenical Councils were held in Braga during this period, a sign of the religious importance of the city.

Christianity saw its importance diminish in southern Portugal during Moorish rule in the Al-Andalus period, beginning in 711 with the Umayyad conquest of Hispania, even if most of the population still followed Christianity according to the Mozarabic Rite. In the north, however, Christianity provided the cultural and religious cement that helped hold Portugal together as a distinctive entity, at least since the reconquest of Porto in 868 by Vímara Peres, the founder of the First County of Portugal. By the same token, Christianity was the rallying cry of those who rose up against the Moors and sought to drive them out. Hence, Christianity and the Catholic Church pre-dated the establishment of the Portuguese nation, a point that shaped relations between the two.

Under Afonso Henriques (r. 1139–1185), the first king of Portugal and the founder of the Portuguese Kingdom, church and state were unified into a lasting and mutually beneficial partnership. To secure papal recognition of his country, Afonso declared Portugal a vassal state of the Pope, and was as such recognized in 1179 through the papal bull Manifestis Probatum. The King found the Church to be a useful ally as he drove the Moors towards the South. For its support of his policies, Afonso richly rewarded the Church by granting it vast lands and privileges in the conquered territories. The Church became the country's largest landowner, and its power came to be equal to that of the nobility, the military orders, and even, for a time, the Crown. But Afonso also asserted his supremacy over the Church, a supremacy that — with various ups and downs — was maintained.

Although relations between the Portuguese State and the Catholic Church were generally amiable and stable, their relative power fluctuated. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the Church enjoyed both riches and power stemming from its role in the reconquest and its close identification with early Portuguese nationalism. For a time, the Church's position vis-à-vis the State diminished until the growth of the Portuguese Overseas Empire made its missionaries important agents of colonization (see, for example, Kingdom of Kongo).

Until the 15th century, some Jews occupied prominent places in Portuguese political and economical life. For example, Isaac Abrabanel was the treasurer of King Afonso V of Portugal. Many also had an active role in the Portuguese culture, and they kept their reputation of diplomats and merchants. By this time, Lisbon and Évora were home to important Jewish communities. In 1497, reflecting events that had occurred five years earlier in Spain, Portugal expelled the Jews and the few remaining Moors — or forced them to convert. In 1536, the Pope gave King João III (r. 1521–1257) permission to establish the Portuguese Inquisition to enforce the purity of the faith. Earlier, the country had been rather tolerant, but now orthodoxy and intolerance reigned. The Jesuit Order was placed in charge of all education.

In the 18th century, anti-Church sentiment became strong. The Marquês de Pombal (r. 1750–1777) expelled the Jesuits in 1759, broke relations with the Holy See in Rome, and brought education under the State's control. Pombal was eventually removed from his office, and many of his reforms were undone, but anti-Clericalism remained a force in Portuguese society. In 1821, the Inquisition was abolished, religious orders were banned, and the Church lost much of its property. Relations between Church and State improved in the second half of the 19th century, but a new wave of anti-Clericalism emerged with the establishment of the Portuguese First Republic in 1910. Not only were Church properties seized and education secularized, but the Republic went so far as to ban the ringing of church bells, the wearing of clerical garb on the streets, and the holding of many popular religious festivals. With the outbreak of the First World War the Portuguese First Republic viewed it as a unique opportunity to achieve a number of goals: putting an end to the twin threats of a Spanish invasion of Portugal and of foreign occupation of the colonies and, at the internal level, creating a national consensus around the regime. These domestic objectives were not met and the armed forces, whose political awareness had grown during the war, and whose leaders had not forgiven the regime for sending them to a war they did not want to fight, seemed to represent, to conservative forces, the last bastion of "order" against the "chaos" that was taking over the country. By the mid-1920s the domestic and international scenes began to favour an authoritarian solution, wherein a strengthened executive might restore political and social order.