Here is the martyr for whom Donostia is named, Saint Sebastian. You do find his image in churches here although I found no church dedicated to him.
This is the beautiful baroque church dedicated to the Virgin.
In the 19th century, the Basques were resolutely Carlist and against the "liberal" forces of Queen Isabella II. (This is the first time that the term "liberal" was used to define a political force in Europe. Queen Isabella, a capricious and despotic monarch, would hardly strike us as "liberal" today.) The Carlist Wars were long, bloody and complex civil wars whose details would overwhelm this blog. Suffice it to say that, because of their devotion to the Church, the Basques were nearly united in their allegiance to the reactionary Carlists. Atrocities were committed by both sides and were a hint at what was to come in the 20th century under Franco. Here´s an image of Saint Sebastian in the Santa Maria.
By the 20th century, the nationalist movement had gained momentum and the original reactionary, even racist platform upon which the earliest nationalists had stood had became more tolerant in nature under the guidance of the movement´s intellectual leaders. The movement came more and more to define itself as one dedicated to the liberation and independence of speakers of the Basque language. Religion, although remaining important to the Basques, became less central to the cause of their independence. With the coming of the dictators in the 1930´s, the Basque reaction to fascism even lead certain Basque radicals to embrace communism, something unthinkable only a quarter of a century earlier.
Begun in 1508, at the end of the Middle Ages in Spain, San Bixente (Saint Vincent) is Donostia´s oldest church.
In 1940, the city had grown large enough to merit its own archdiocese and the Church of the Good Shepherd became Donostia´s cathedral. Constructed over a period of nine years in the late 1800´s, the cathedral is in the gothic style.
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