Justo Gallego Martínez

Justo Gallego Martínez is a former monk who has been constructing a cathedral-like building on his own in the town of Mejorada del Campo in the Community of Madrid, Spain, since 1961. Don Justo has named the building Nuestra Señora del Pilar. It has neither any planning permissions, nor has it the benediction of any church authority.Life and inspirationGallego Martínez was a farmer. His mother, a Roman Catholic, was very pious. His school education was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War. At the age of ten he witnessed communist forces, who were fighting Franco, shooting priests and ransacking the church in Mejorada del Campo; the events left him with little respect for the town’s socialist administration. As a young man, he joined a Trappist monastery but had to leave in 1961, after eight years, when he contracted tuberculosis and his health deteriorated in the monastic regime. He began to build a cathedral on a plot of land he had inherited from his parents. He had promised that if he recovered from the tuberculosis which had struck him down, he would build a shrine in honour of Our Lady of the Pillar, to whom he had prayed."The Cathedral"On 12 October 1961, Gallego commenced the building work. There are no formal plans for the building. Gallego Martínez initially just levelled the ground and mapped out the ground-works on site. The building has evolved over time in response to opportunity and inspiration. One inspiration has been St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City, the White House in the US, and various castles and churches in Spain.