Peñaflor experienced this Saturday, May 9, a historic day with the canonical coronation of the Virgin of Villadiego, patron saint of the Sevillian town, in a celebration that completely transformed the municipality. Thousands of neighbors accompanied the image during the religious acts and the subsequent extraordinary procession, in an atmosphere of great solemnity and popular participation.
Garlanded balconies, adorned streets, and ephemeral altars marked the route of a procession especially awaited in the town. The coronation ceremony was presided over by the Archbishop of Seville, Monsignor José Ángel Saiz Meneses, and brought together civil authorities, brotherhoods, and faithful from various points in Andalusia.
The Virgin of Villadiego constitutes one of the oldest devotions in the Sevillian province and has occupied a central place in the religious life of Peñaflor for centuries. Tradition places the origin of the invocation in the times of the Reconquista.
The celebration inevitably connects with the history of streets that during the Civil War were the scene of the martyrdom of Antonio Molle Lazo. The young Carlist from Jerez was detained in Peñaflor in August 1936 and subjected, according to numerous testimonies, to brutal tortures to force him to blaspheme and renounce his faith.
The preserved accounts hold that Antonio Molle was mutilated and finally murdered in the middle of a street in Peñaflor after repeatedly shouting “Long live Christ the King!”. Some witnesses from the time claimed that he died with his arms open and legs crossed, in a position similar to that of the crucified Christ.
Ninety years later, the same streets where that crime took place welcomed the solemn passage of Peñaflor’s crowned patron saint in one of the largest religious celebrations that the municipality remembers in recent decades.