Religious persecution during the Spanish Civil War

Historical accounts detail various instances of religious persecution and martyrdom occurring during the Spanish Civil War between 1931 and 1939.

In Valencia, María Teresa Ferragud Roig and her four daughters—religious sisters from the Capuchin Clarisses and Discalced Augustinians—were executed in Alzira on October 25, 1936. The 83-year-old mother chose to accompany her daughters to their execution, a decision noted during their beatification by Pope John Paul II.

In Asturias, three Red Cross volunteers—María Pilar Gullón Iturriaga, Olga Pérez-Monteserín Núñez, and Octavia Iglesias Blanco—were captured while tending to wounded soldiers on the Asturian front. They were executed in Pola de Somiedo on October 28, 1936. Their history has been reconstructed through military archives and their 2021 beatification.

In Murcia, the remains of Blessed Piedad de la Cruz were profaned in Alcantarilla on October 26, 1936, when the Fifth Regiment of the Iron Column occupied the Mother House of the Salesian Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, forcing the religious community to flee.