In 2018, fifty years will have passed since the first reports of Marian apparitions in El Palmar de Troya in Spanish Andalusia. It will also be the fortieth anniversary of the coronation of the seer Clemente Domínguez Gómez as Pope Gregory XVII, and the consequent foundation of the Palmarian Catholic Church. Still, placing the papal tiara on his head was only seen as a human act of confirmation. He asserted that Christ himself had crowned him just after the death of Pope Paul VI.

This book provides a broad overview of the history of the apparitions at El Palmar de Troya and the church that became its main result. It also includes a more systematic analysis of the church’s increasingly unusual doctrines and rituals. Through the study, I try to answer two underlying questions: First, which factors contributed to the foundation of the Palmarian Church?  Second, how has the church survived and developed through its four decades of existence?