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Barcelona - An order of Carmelite nuns are at the centre of a legal row over priceless religious icons which they made off with when they left their nunnery.
When the sisters decided to move from their run-down, insect-infested nunnery, they surprised locals by taking more than just the furniture.
But when residents of Grajal de Campos, in Leon, northern Spain, realised two large wooden religious icons had disappeared, an accusatory finger was pointed at the brides of Christ.
The 17th-century Inmaculada and the 18th-century San Jose, which formed part of an altarpiece, and the 16th-century Cristo Yacente, which was in a glass urn, disappeared when the nuns moved on six months ago.
Their absence meant the neighbouring Brotherhood of the Third Order of San Fransisco in Grajal de Campos could not take part in the Easter parades on Good Friday for the first time in 500 years as they carry the icons through the streets. Now the brotherhood has launched a legal fight to get the icons back.
The nuns come from a largely silent Carmelite order in which they take an oath to remain barefoot. But voices have already been raised among angry locals, anxious to retrieve the icons.
Two hundred protesters also took the fight to the doors of the nuns' new home in Toledo shouting "Trust the termites more than the Carmelites" - a reference to the excuse used by the nuns to move as they claimed their building was insect-infested.
Francisco Espinosa, mayor of Grajal de Campos, said: "they say that they've looked after them for years in the convent, and they believe that gives them the right to take them."
"We have documents from as far back as 1728 that show that they have been here much longer than the nuns, who arrived in 1881."
It is rumoured that the nuns want to sell the building and cash in on Spain's building boom. The nuns refuse to comment.
- INDEPENDENT
