The church reshaping Spain's history: did Moors and Christians once live together in peace?

By&nbspRafael Salido Published on 24/07/2026 - 19:48 GMT+2•Updated 20:11 Share Comments Add Euronews on Google Share Facebook Twitter Flipboard Send Reddit Linkedin Messenger Telegram VK Bluesky Threads Whatsapp The Cerro de la Virgen site in Calasparra, south-eastern Spain, shows a Christian community continued its liturgy until the 9th century. Archaeologists say this points to a more harmonious coexistence between Christians and Muslims than previously assumed. A hill in the northwest of Murcia is forcing historians to rethink some of the most entrenched ideas about the early centuries of al-Andalus.

Excavations at the Cerro de la Virgen de Calasparra have brought to light an early Christian church that not only survived the Muslim conquest of the year 713, but remained in use for almost two centuries more. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The study (source in Spanish), published in the scientific journal 'Salduie' by researchers David Martínez and Rubén Fernández, documents the existence of a temple founded around the first half of the 5th century that appears to have retained its religious character at least until the 9th century. If this chronology is fully confirmed, it would be one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the continuity of Christian worship on the Iberian Peninsula during the early years of Moorish rule.

The church was identified thanks to a series of survey and excavation campaigns carried out in the area since 2021. Archaeologists describe it as a single-nave building with a tripartite chancel, a layout they see as characteristic of certain "late antique" churches. "This represents an architectural model with notable parallels in Visigothic churches such as Santa Cristina de Lena," the authors of the study point out, in reference to this church in Asturias.

They also note that the sacristies and apses show parallels with some "parochial and episcopal" churches in Syria, a connection that reflects the use of similar architectural models around the Mediterranean in Late Antiquity. Much more than a matter of time Radiocarbon dating places the construction of the building between the years 410 and 440 AD. This is supported by ceramic and stratigraphic analyses that back the hypothesis of a prolonged occupation of the site.

The site had already attracted researchers' attention in previous campaigns, when a unique bronze early Christian lamp in the shape of a Eucharistic dove was found, considered at the time an exceptional piece in the European context. However, the most significant aspect of the new study is not the age of the temple, but its survival as such after the Muslim conquest of the peninsula. Traditionally, many historical accounts have presented the arrival of Moorish troops at the beginning of the 8th century as a relatively sharp break with Visigothic traditions.

The Calasparra finds, however, sketch out a more complex reality. The researchers argue that there is no evidence that the church was converted into a mosque, or that it immediately lost its religious function. In fact, they state that "the record, with the presence of storage containers and cooking ware, should not be understood as evidence of a desanctification of the church or of its conversion into Islamic dwellings", the study notes.

The typological and stratigraphic study of the ceramics points to a continuation of the church's liturgical character well into the 9th century David Martínez y Rubén Fernández Authors of the study "On the contrary, such materials should be read as indicators of continued use of the space for community practices that included both worship and resource management," they maintain. This interpretation is reinforced by the central conclusion of the paper: "The typological and stratigraphic study of the ceramics points to a continuation of the church's liturgical character well into the 9th century." The research also places this phenomenon in the context of the kūra of Tudmīr, the administrative entity that emerged after the pact signed in 713 between the Muslim authorities and the Visigothic nobleman Theodemir.

That agreement allowed numerous Christian communities to retain, for a time, part of their political, religious and economic structures in exchange for paying taxes. Taxation itself is another key to the site. Among the materials recovered are scales, weights and other objects linked to economic control and the collection of taxes.

One of these weights even bears an Arabic inscription that can be translated as "justice belongs to God". Christian faith, Muslim taxes The presence of these objects shows that the Cerro de la Virgen played a role that went far beyond the strictly religious. Its strategic position, commanding important communication routes and nearby agricultural resources, turned it into a centre of territorial and economic organisation.

In other words, the Christian community that used the church also took part in the fiscal mechanisms of the new Andalusi power. The a