The cultural institution in western Spain is awarded by evangelical Christians for its outstanding contribution to the proper recognition of the Spanish Reformers, especially Casiodoro de Reina from Extremadura.
Members of the RAEx at its headquarters.
Spanish news website Protestante Digital has awarded the Royal Academy of Letters and Arts of Extremadura (RAEx) with the Unamuno Friend of Protestants Prize 2025.
The award recognises Spanish individuals or institutions that, not being of Protestant or evangelical faith, have made a significant contribution to the plurality and coexistence of society, especially in issues related to Spanish evangelicals.
In this case, it recognises “the commendable work of the RAEx in the normalisation of the social and cultural coexistence of evangelical believers, as well as in the restoration of Protestant historical memory”.
The RAEx is an institution which aims to illustrate and exalt the historical, artistic and literary values of Extremadura, a region located in the centre-west of Spain, promoting their research, making them better known, and promoting and safeguarding them. It was officially created on 6 June 1980.
The historian and director of the Centre for Research and Memory of Spanish Protestantism, Emilio Monjo, stresses that the RAEx has contributed, with great excellence and generosity, to ensuring that Extremadura knows the Spanish Reformers, especially the first Bible translator Casiodoro de Reina, who was born there.
The RAEx dedicated the ninth annual conference on Extremaduran Humanism to him in 2019, and proposed that the next conference be dedicated to Cipriano de Valera, another Spanish Reformer.
All this work laid the foundations for a cultural and historical space that did not exist until then, which led (among others) the Regional Publishing House of Extremadura to publish part of the Bear Bible; as well as the municipality of Montemolín, where Reina was born, to hold several activities linked to his figure and to name a street in his memory.
Casiodoro de Reina and Cipriano de Valera are two of the great and much-loved figures of Spanish Protestantism.
Antonio Muñoz Molina, also winner of the Unamuno Prize, a well-known and award-winning writer and member of the Royal Spanish Academy, is passionate about the “Bear Bible”, the “Protestant Bible” by Casiodoro de Reina (later edited by Cipriano de Valera).
He considers that this Bible, the first translation of the Bible into Spanish from the original texts, has been “invisible’ for centuries, despite being a “true literary jewel”.
The ‘Unamuno, friend of Protestants Prize’ has been awarded since 2006 by a jury made up of the Spanish news website Protestante Digital and the Spanish Evangelical Alliance (AEE).
Protestante Digital is the main evangelical information and opinion media in Spain and one of the main evangelical media in Spanish outside Spain, after 21 years of existence and over 15 million page views per year.
The news website belongs to the Spanish Evangelical Alliance, the oldest interdenominational evangelical entity in the country, with nearly 150 years.
The Spanish Evangelical Alliance is the representative of Spanish Protestantism in the European Evangelical Alliance (EEA, present before the EU in Brussels) and the World Alliance (WEA), with headquarters in New York.
The name of the prize refers to the strong friendship between 20th century intellectual Miguel de Unamuno and the Protestant pastor Atilano Coco.
Unamuno defended religious freedom during the Civil War, and tried everything he could to avoid Coco to be executed by the Francisco Franco regime. The blockbuster film Mientras dure la guerra (in English, While at War), accurately shows Unamuno’s efforts to save his Protestant friend.
Among those who have received the Unamuno, Friend of Protestants award are well-known institutions, politicians and intellectuals.
It was previously awarded, among others, to entities such as the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria or the Santiponce City Council, to cities as Seville, and to cultural and political figures in Spain, such as the former minister of justice and mayor of Madrid, Alberto Ruiz Gallardón, the former director of Spanish public television, José María Calviño, the historian and director of the Andalusian Institute of Historical Heritage, Juan José Primo Jurado, and philosopher and university professor, José Luis Villacañas.
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