The Royal Collegiate Church of the Holy Sepulcher will become a basilicaI was born and raised in the illustrious city of Calatayud. We Bilbilitanos were very proud to have no less than two collegiate churches, each with its own choir of canons: that of Santa María (formerly called Mediavilla because it was in the middle of the city), dependent on the diocesan bishop; and that of the Holy Sepulchre, which historically had depended on the patriarch of Jerusalem, and whose canons preserve the insignia that accredit them as such: the most visible, the red patriarchal cross (with two arms), which evokes the connection with the Holy Land and its patriarch.
When I was a child and adolescent, I often went to Santa Maria, a beautiful and very ancient place, as it was very close to my home, to go to Mass, and every week, to confession with Father Enrique Carnicer, who was the magisterial canon. The chapel of the Holy Sepulchre was on my way to the Institute, and there we students had some spiritual exercises in open regime. In the chapel of Carmen I was given the scapular of the Virgin Mary. His canon prior, Don Pedro Ruiz came to the Institute. From him I learned, in the time of some recreations, to sing the Gregorian Mass De Angelis.
Don Pedro and Don Enrique, two characters that influenced a good part of that youth. I remember both of them elegant, covered with their broad cloaks; Don Enrique used to wear it with his cloak on his head. He was also (as they used to say) a "home visitor", the family's trusted priest.
Of the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher I had fewer references. I had never seen any of them or any of their ceremonies. I only heard my mother say, from time to time, that the father of her friend Clarisa had been a great gentleman and a good Christian, so much so that he was a Knight of the Holy Sepulcher. Clarisa Millán García de Cáceres lived and worked in Madrid, and on the occasions when she came to see her widowed mother, from time to time, she would visit us at home. She was a renowned archaeologist, an expert in numismatics. On the last visit I remember, she told us about her stay in Belgium, as a guest of King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola, whose coin and medal collection she had gone to catalog. Since there was no longer an obligation for the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre to cross in Jerusalem, his father, Don Miguel Millán Aguirre, had been the first to be invested in the collegiate church of Calatayud on October 31, 1920. In this way the appointment that had been conferred on him by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem in 1895 was carried out. This I learned some time later, when I read the splendid work of Quintanilla y RincónThe Royal Collegiate Church of the Holy Sepulchre of CalatayudZaragoza. Just as her father did not have to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to be invested as a knight, Clarisa would travel there years later and would have the opportunity to pray (and have her portrait taken) before the Holy Sepulchre in one of the stops of the famous University Cruise around the Mediterranean in 1933, organized by the Dean of Letters, García Morente, and in which some two hundred people participated, including professors, researchers and students from various faculties.
The Collegiate Church of Calatayud
Of the Collegiate Church of Calatayud we have historical evidence of its origins and history up to the present day. After conquering Jerusalem at the end of the First Crusade in 1099, Godfrey of Bouillon left a chapter of regular canons in charge of the liturgy of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and a corps of knights for its custody there in the Holy Land.
Only forty years later, a temple of the same name was to be erected in Spain, in the city of Calatayud, directly dependent on the former, endowed with a chapter of canons and real estate with which to sustain itself. The situation arose on the death of the King of Aragon, Alfonso I, who left the three Jerusalemite orders of the Holy Sepulchre, St. John of the Hospital and the Temple as heirs to his patrimony. The patriarch of Jerusalem, William I, after renouncing this complicated inheritance (as did the representatives of the other orders) sent in 1141 a canon of the Holy Sepulchre named Giraldo, to receive from Count Ramon Berenguer IV, who succeeded Alfonso I, certain territories and vassals that were ceded to them in compensation for the renunciation of the inheritance. Among these properties, the order of canons received land and goods to build and maintain the collegiate church that would bear the same name as its parent church. With different vicissitudes, the collegiate church has lived until today, when it depends on the diocesan bishop, and is governed by a parish priest whom the bishop also appoints as prior.
Due to the importance that the collegiate church had achieved in the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, since it is considered the mother house of the Order of Chivalry, and coinciding with the 900th anniversary of the reconquest of Calatayud by Alfonso the Battler, in 2020 the bishop of Tarazona, to whose diocese it belongs, requested the Holy See to grant it the dignity of Basilica.
On November 9, 2020, the Holy See communicated to the bishop the concession of this title, which had never before been granted to a temple of the diocese. Because of the health crisis that the whole world was suffering at that time, the proclamation was moved to June 12, 2021. This was celebrated with a solemn ceremony in which, in addition, the prior of the Basilica was invested as an ecclesiastical knight. The liturgy was presided over by Cardinal Martínez Sistach, Grand Prior; concelebrated by several bishops and priests; attended by the civil and military authorities and about 120 knights and dames of the two Spanish circumscriptions of the Holy Sepulchre led by their respective lieutenants, Don Juan Carlos de Balle and Don José Carlos Sanjuán. On this occasion, the Santi Sepulcri Missa, composed for the occasion by the maestro Josep-Enric Peris, was premiered.
The knighthood
When in 2007 I was proposed to join the Order of Chivalry, I considered that I was being offered an honor that, as the writer Châteaubriand said of himself, "I had neither asked for nor deserved". With the same ritual with which he was knighted in 1810. He, with all stealth for fear of the Turks who might burst in; we (me and my classmates), with all the splendor of the organ and the singers. He, by the hand of the guardian (superior) of the Franciscans of the Custody, who then had that power; we, by the archbishop of Barcelona. He, in the Franciscan church next to that of the Holy Sepulchre; we, in the church of the Spanish city of Barcelona. He and we, receiving the three touches of the sword on the shoulder (he, still of the sword of Godfrey, which would disappear a little later in a fire); we, with a faithful replica. He, receiving the golden spurs on his boots; we, placing our hand on them as a sign of possession. Then, he and we received the habit and the other insignia: he, from the hands of those religious; we, from the hands of our lieutenant, who was then the Count of Lavern. To accredit this dignity, Châteaubriand returned to Paris with a diploma signed by the guardian and with the seal of the convent; we received the diploma signed and sealed in Rome by the Grand Master.
On that day full of emotions, we still had a very pleasant surprise in store for us. To the dinner with which we celebrated the crossing of the new knights and investiture of ladies, Queen Fabiola of the Belgians accompanied us, who was in our city those days and had the kindness to converse with all the diners. Her knowledge and appreciation of the Order came from long ago; not in vain her brother Don Gonzalo de Mora had held, in the same, for years, the lieutenancy of Castile and Leon.
While some of us were running around her and talking about the late King Baldwin, I remembered, by association of ideas, the first gentleman from Bilbilitano who came across the basilica today, and his daughter who one day went to work in the numismatic cabinet of the royal palace of Baldwin and Fabiola and also enjoyed their conversation.
Stay in the Holy Land
From the day I received the cross, my interest in the Holy Land, which I would soon get to know slowly, was growing. In fact, I had the joy of being in Jerusalem for three weeks in a row during the summer of 2010.
I was able to visit the Holy Places and meet the most knowledgeable people: the highly esteemed Franciscan Father Artemio Vitores, who was vice-custos and had been living there since 1970; and Patriarch Fouad Twal, with whom I was able to converse at length on two occasions, and with whom I was given the pilgrim's badge and the corresponding diploma.
I cannot forget, either, the hospitality of the jovial Brother Ovidio, companion of Father Artemio, with whom he arrived from Spain forty years earlier, and who went every year to collect water from the Jordan River and bottle it to make it available to anyone who asked for it, for example, for baptism.
I have a vivid memory of those processions that, according to what I was told, have been celebrated every evening for centuries by the Franciscan friars inside the church of the Holy Sepulcher, accompanied by the faithful, all carrying lighted candles and chanting in Latin the texts that are written on the paper they distribute. A very singular emotion is felt every time that, in front of a place that recalls a passage of the Lord, the word that anchors in the most palpable reality is pronounced: hic, 'here'. And the faces of those faithful of the place, with the Arab features and the look always grateful for the presence, the company of the pilgrims who do not leave them alone in their sad situation of outcast minority. And the joy of the small artisans of Bethlehem who sell their manufactured articles. When pilgrimages are cut off, their livelihood is cut off. It is also for this reason that the Order of the Holy Sepulchre encourages and organizes pilgrimages every year from the various countries in which it is established.
The Order of the Holy Sepulcher
When someone asks me what those of us who belong to the Order of the Holy Sepulchre do for a living, I usually answer with the words of a very esteemed lieutenant: "here we come to do two things: to pray and to pay".
Indeed, apart from prayers and other religious practices that each one lives according to his own spirituality, the Order organizes masses, conferences, retreats, with which to stimulate personal piety and petition for the Christians of the Holy Land.
In the area of financial support, in addition to the ordinary and extraordinary contributions of each gentleman and lady, we try to promote activities to awaken the generosity of other people who contribute to the support of Christian life in the Land of Jesus.
Pandemic relief
At present, the Order of Chivalry supports more than 90% of the budget of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem (Palestine, Israel, Jordan and Cyprus): seat of the Patriarchate, seminaries, parishes, schools, universities, residences, dispensaries, catechetical work and publishing of books and catechisms....
The Order has responded to the needs created by the recent coronavirus pandemic with extraordinary assistance.
The distribution and control of all these aids is carried out by the Grand Magisterium, the highest governing body of the Order, based in Rome.
On October 7, 2020, Patriarch Gianbattista Pizzaballa, in his fourth year at the head of the Patriarchate, thanked the Order of the Holy Sepulchre with these words: "During these four years of service to the Latin Diocese of Jerusalem, in the Latin Patriarchate, I have been able to see for myself the role of the Knights and Dames of the Holy Sepulchre for this Church, not only in the context of educational and pastoral activities, but in general for the life of the entire diocese. Both with pilgrims and through initiatives in their respective territories, the various Lieutenancies have always kept alive not only in word, but also in deed and with their own concrete character, the link with the various realities of the Latin Patriarchate. All this has also been confirmed this past year, when during the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Patriarchate has found itself facing a new emergency ...a large part of our population has been confronted with a drastic reduction in salaries and a general economic situation even more fragile than usual. Thanks to the support of the Grand Master, with the Grand Magisterium, our appeal to the Knights and Dames received a response that far exceeded our expectations and gave us the necessary impetus to face this emergency with greater serenity. We were all amazed and surprised by this immediate response and its magnitude ... Thank you for being, for this small but important Church, the concrete and tangible sign of Divine Providence!"
I would encourage readers who identify with this work of aid to the Holy Land, like that lieutenant, to pray and help financially: you will know how to find the best way to do it!
The Order in the world
At present, the Order of the Holy Sepulchre is made up of about 30,000 Knights and Dames from about forty nations, organized in about 60 Lieutenancies and - in those places where it is in its founding phase - in about ten Magistral Delegations. To coordinate the whole Order, at the universal level, there is the Grand Master - a cardinal appointed by the Pope - surrounded by a governing council whose seat is in Rome, called the Grand Magisterium.
The executive of the Grand Magisterium is constituted by the Governor General, four Vice Governors and the Chancellor of the Order. The Governor General follows the structural and material organizational matters, especially the social and charitable activities in the Holy Land.
The Master of Ceremonies guides and assists the Grand Master in the spiritual expansion of the Order. Also part of the Grand Magisterium are the Advisor and the Lieutenant General.
