Justo Gallego has spent 40 years single-handedly building a cathedral, only to discover that his quixotic passion for the offbeat building was not widely shared.
After four decades of toil the 78-year-old former Cistercian monk says his obra, or work, which rises out of the Castilian plain at Mejorada del Campo 15 miles from Madrid, is now almost finished.
But as many of Spain's dilapidated churches are increasingly given over to storks rather than worshippers, the Church sees no need for another.
"It's not a cathedral and it never will be," said a spokesman for the Alcala diocese, to which Mejorada del Campo belongs. "It's not necessary and it needs the kind of investment that the diocese just can't make."
The local authorities also wonder what they will do with a building that never had planning permission and is built with techniques unorthodox even by Spain's variable standards.
Miguel Valero, a planning councillor at Mejorada del Campo, echoed doubts over the future of the illegal cathedral. "It is a very tricky issue. We are trying to find ways of preserving what is a symbol of Mejorada," he said. "We're going to try to come to an arrangement with the diocese."
It is easy to see why the cathedral arouses such anxiety. The massive but still skeletal Romanesque building is adorned with a medley of 115ft Byzantine towers, a cupola modelled on the Vatican, hanging turrets and a Mozarab arch.
It has a semi-circular entrance based on the White House and concrete moulds of Jesus and the saints pinioned on the leaky, 60ft-high, corrugated roof. When finished, claims Mr Gallego, its towers will reach 180ft, rivalling the Tower of Pisa.
The cathedral is largely made of smashed building blocks, with empty tins moulded into mullioned windows. Soon to be added are 1,000 round plastic tubs, donated by the local baker, to be recycled as moulds for the vaulting.
But Mr Gallego, the son of a landowner, does not suffer from tremors of faith. His steady, light-brown eyes peer from an angular face that breaks easily into an irreverent and largely toothless chuckle. "I started building because I wanted to purify my soul. We sin all the time - I do every time I see a beautiful woman," he said.
"Kings, lords and bishops, they can all build cathedrals. But here is just one simple believer doing it."
The work of piety began when, after studying for eight years to become a Cistercian monk, Mr Gallego was expelled from the brotherhood because, he says, he contracted tuberculosis. Local people suggest that his departure could have been due to some other peccadillo.
He now lives in avowed poverty with his sister. He has sold parcels of land to meet some of the construction costs but said that his work is still dependent on donations and occasional help from his nephews and, more rarely, a builder.
When he started to build the cathedral on a hill overlooking where he was born, Mejorada del Campo was a village surrounded by countryside. Now it has become part of the concrete belt closing in on Madrid and is home to 20,000 people.
The town is divided over Mr Gallego's bequest. Some of his neighbours think he is mad, deluded or an egomaniac. Others compare him flatteringly to Antoni Gaudi, the Catalan architect of the unfinished Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. He rejects both opinions.
"They say I'm quixotic or mad. No doubt they'll nail me to the cross. But Quixote does not interest me. This is real."