Manrique Alonso Lallave
Manrique Alonso Lallave also known as Fr. Nicolás Manrique Alonso Lallave was a Spanish Dominican priest well known for translating the Gospel of Luke into the Pangasinan language, the first ever known instance of a part of the Bible translated into a Philippine language.
Biography
Early life
Not much is known about Lallave's early life. He was born on 14 February 1839 in the small village of La Fuente de San Esteban To Don Vicente Alonso, of Aldeadávila de la Ribera and Doña Francisca de la Llave, of Cordoba. He was baptised on 20 February 1839 in said town by Andrés Peromato. at age 14, he entered a convent of the Dominican overseas missionaries. He finished his studies in Manila and served as a Roman Catholic pastor for 12 years in the Philippine Islands.Conversion to Protestantism
He seems to have converted to Protestantism while in Pangasinan as the Spanish Dominican priest he received an English Bible from a British captain, and/or by Protestant treaties that someone had sent him from London, which caused a change causing his preachings to become Protestant. In 1867, someone sent him Protestant treaties from Spain, which caused him to be demoted and locked in a dungeon in a convent in Manila, He wrote about his conversion: “My somewhat extensive knowledge of religion has come to persuade me of the many and far-reaching mistakes of the Church of Rome, from which I have separated, freely and spontaneously, with no other purpose than to profess the truth, and using the anti-evangelical behavior of the Roman clergy in general and of the friars in particular” as a motive.Later life
Because of his Protestantism, In 1872, he was removed from his position as priest and sent back to Spain where he renounced Catholicism and joined a Protestant church called the Spanish Christian Church and began his ministry in the evangelical churches of Granada and Madrid in different periods, being a pastor established in Seville from 1874 to 1888.in 1873, he translated the Gospel of Luke into the Pangasinan language, which was the first instance of a part of the Bible translated into a Philippine language, it was then published in 1877 by the British and Foreign Bible Society
In Seville he became a Mason, in the Numancia 16 lodge of the Gran Oriente Luso in 1886 of the Great East Luso by 1886, being Master Founder. Later he would find Numancia 67 of the Gran Logia Sevillana and will be director of El taller, a freemason newspaper
In 1877, he became a Protestant pastor. He nearly finished translating the New Testament, married Carolina Ortíz Morilla, together they had seven children.
In 1880, he released a Biblical dictionary called "Diccionario bíblico : primera parte que comprende la historia, geografía y etnografía de las Santas Escrituras, ilustrado con grabados intercalados en el texto y mapas geográficos / por el rev. don Manrique Alonso Lallave"
In 1882, he translated Samuel B. Schieffelin's "The Foundations of History: a Series of First Things" into Spanish.