One of the most iconic images of Holy Week in Spain is the procession of the Spanish Legion in Málaga on Holy Thursday. The legionnaires carry the Cristo de Mena, the Christ of the Good Death, on their shoulders from the Church of Santo Domingo in Málaga to the throne of the Brotherhood of the Congregation of Mena. The Christ of the Good Death, which depicts Christ dying with serenity and acceptance, is known as the Cristo de Mena after its creator, Pedro de Mena, who carved the statue between 1660 and 1665 for the Dominican convent of the Church of Santo Domingo. However, the Christ that the legionnaires raise toward the sky while singing “El Novio de la Muerte”, the Legion’s anthem, is not the original image, but a copy; the Cristo de Mena was burned by left-wing Republicans in the infamous burning of convents in 1931.
On April 14, 1931, the Second Republic was proclaimed. The new order sought to separate church and state, but what it actually did was adopt a radically anti-Catholic agenda, including the dissolution of religious orders, the prohibition of official participation in religious ceremonies, the end of tax exemptions, and the elimination of compulsory religious education. On May 10, the inauguration in Madrid of the Independent Monarchist Circle sparked several riots that resulted in the deaths of two people. The minister of the interior, Miguel Maura, warned the government that groups of left-wing Republicans were organizing to “burn down convents,” but his warnings were ignored. The next day, the Jesuit Casa Profesa went up in flames. Maura insisted on deploying the Civil Guard to control the mobs, but Prime Minister Manuel Azaña replied, “All the convents in Spain are not worth the life of a single Republican.” On the 12th, after eight more religious buildings had been set ablaze, the government took action and stopped the violence, but the wave of convent burnings spread to other parts of Spain, reaching as far as Málaga.
At that time, the Church of Santo Domingo housed the Cristo de Mena and a vast collection of artistic treasures, and it was also the headquarters of many brotherhoods—including those of the Cristo de Mena, El Paso, La Esperanza, Jesús del Rescate, Sagrado Prendimiento, and Humillación—as well as various pious congregations. On the night of May 12, the church was stormed and ransacked by a mob of Republicans. This is how the Málaga newspaper El Cronista reported the events in its May 13 edition:
It was around five in the morning when some groups marched to the Church of Santo Domingo, breaking down the sacristy door and entering the interior, where they began to carry out the same destructive work as in the other places they had passed through. The main door was opened, and through it they began to drag out pews, statues, and furnishings, building massive bonfires in the Santo Domingo Hall and in the church courtyard, which, moments later, were burning in a huge blaze. (…) At eight in the morning, the enraged mob remained in control of the church, and in a massive bonfire they were piling up pews, windows, furniture, and statues that were consumed by the flames.
The Cristo de Mena, after being beaten by the mob, was burned along with other religious images; only part of one leg and one foot of the Christ were spared.
Even before these terrible events, the Cristo de Mena was already the patron and protector of what is now the Legion, which was founded on January 20, 1920, as the Tercio de Extranjeros, an elite military unit formed to fight in the Rif War. Málaga was the destination for legionnaires wounded in the African campaign, so the soldiers began participating in the city’s processions; in 1925, the commander of the Tercio de Extranjeros, Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Franco, took part in the Holy Thursday procession. Three years later, the Tercio asked the Congregation of Mena to make the Cristo de la Buena Muerte their protector and patron. On Holy Thursday in 1930, the Legionnaires disembarked for the first time at the port of Málaga, and the following year, the first Legionary guard was established, from Palm Sunday through Holy Wednesday, before the image of the Holy Christ of the Good Death and Souls in the Chapel of Santo Domingo.
The Legion’s procession and parade returned in 1942, thanks to a replica of the original carving created by sculptor Francisco Palma Burgos, based on photographs of the original Cristo de Mena. That is when the tradition as we know it today was born, with the legionnaires escorting and carrying the Christ on their shoulders, and it has become one of the most powerful and devotional events of Spanish Holy Week.
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