Justo Gallego Martínez

"I do it for faith. That's clear, no?"

Justo Gallego Martínez (20 September 1925 – 28 November 2021); also known by his honorific byname Don Justo, was a Spaniard who was known for constructing a church building in the dimensions of a cathedral on his own in the town of Mejorada del Campo since 1961.

Quotes by Justo Gallego Martínez

• I do it for faith. That's clear, no?
  • "BBC News - Madrid man builds cathedral from junk". BBC News. 30 December 2010. Retrieved on 7 April 2011. 

• My love of Christ means I will go to the ends of the world. People get tired and bored because they have no ideals. They haven't given themselves to Christ, the creator.
  • 91-Year-Old ‘Fool for Christ’ Builds Massive Church in Spain. National Catholic Register (2017-03-09).

• I saw the Communists destroy all the churches here, with people laughing and dancing in the ruins. But when you believe, you can then also rebuild with your own hands a beautiful new place.
  • Minder, Raphael (December 8, 2021). "Justo Gallego, Who Built a Cathedral, Brick by Brick, Dies at 96". New York Times. 

• The world is vain. The world is ungrateful. I have to search for the truth. Do the opposite of what others do.
  • The Cathedral, documentary film

• I demand a lot from myself, I reflect a lot, I search for the truth. That's what I was born to do, to be a witness to the truth.
  • The Cathedral, documentary film

• I'm very eccentric. I do everything excessively. Maybe some people tell me I'm crazy. Others maybe say I'm vain. Others say something else, but everyone is wrong. I'm not crazy.
  • The Cathedral, documentary film

• The graveyard is full of good intentions, but people never fulfil them. I'm different, I go for it. I've got myself all the way here.
  • The Cathedral, documentary film

"God has created wonders with circles. The sun and moon are circles. The eye is round and it's beautiful. The circle is from God, but the angle is the Devil's doing."

• God has created wonders with circles. The sun and moon are circles. The eye is round and it's beautiful. The circle is from God, but the angle is the Devil's doing.
  • The Cathedral, documentary film

• As a Catholic, I have to be authentic. When I watch a football match, I never see all of it, and I ask God to forgive me for watching it. Because for me, it's idolatry. A man can't sell a football player for five billion. That's paganism.
  • The Cathedral, documentary film

Quotes about Justo Gallego Martínez

• He's a very crazy person. Everyone says he's crazy, everyone. I also think he's crazy. The way he speaks, the way he lives, it makes him crazy.
  • The Cathedral, documentary film

• I think he's making a fool out of himself for his whole life, because he'll never finish it.
  • The Cathedral, documentary film

"You can't build a cathedral, or even a house, without complex calculations and without studies in architecture. But Justo has no education of any kind, not even primary school. So, finding a human explanation for the building seems even more difficult to me than finding a supernatural one."

• You can't build a cathedral, or even a house, without complex calculations and without studies in architecture. But Justo has no education of any kind, not even primary school. So, finding a human explanation for the building seems even more difficult to me than finding a supernatural one.
  • The Cathedral, documentary film

• He's able to give life to things that no longer have it. That's also very connected to Christianity.
  • The Cathedral, documentary film
• Perhaps the origin of the idea and the message got lost along the way. The slogan wasn't, "what a man is capable of doing for his faith". Instead, it was, "what a man, with faith in himself, can achieve". But if we take the religious aspect out of Justo, we cease to understand him.
  • The Cathedral, documentary film

• When you see the structure from afar, and without knowing what it is, it can seem a little messy and chaotic, maybe a little poorly built. But when you realize it was built by one man alone, you get goosebumps.
  • The Cathedral, documentary film

• I think you start to think someone is crazy when you see him from a distance, and when he is too different it makes him a madman. But when you get closer to him, you start to see his point. All of a sudden it dawned on me that the cathedral was built for the greatest reason in the world. When I see the building, I think I also want to build it in my life. Not a building, but I want to build it with my wife. An invisible building, but one you've built with love, with thousands of details, so that when you reach the end of your life, you've left a physical metaphor that shows that love endures.
  • The Cathedral, documentary film