SAINT ANTONÍ MÀRTIR PAROCHIAL CHURCH

In the highest part of the town, on top of the rock of the mountain, and on a previous Arab mosque, the church was built in 1329, of Gothic style and dedicated to “Sant Antoní Mártir”.

For its construction, tile bricks of Muslim origin were used.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this church had its first widening, the side walls were then opened, and Renaissance style side chapels with their respective domes were built. As mentioned before, in the church are deposited the two sepulchral vessels of the fourteenth century that belong to the Carròs family (lords of the Barony of Rebollet), that in 1747, a neighbour of the municipality found casually among the ruins of the Castle of Rebollet The tomb of Francesc Carròs I († 1343 in Cerdanya) on the left and that of Francesc Carròs II, his son, on the right side. The graves, engraved with inscriptions and shields of the family, were deposited in the church by order of the Duchess of Gandia.

Finally, in the year 1792, the bell tower was erected. This is an element that defines and references the silhouette of the village, because it is a vertical structure that is located at the highest point of the village and that can be seen from distance. It has a square floor plan, with a base of 5.25 square meters and a height of 45 meters.

In the year 1890, a reform was carried out, which consisted in the demolition of the abbey house, for the construction of the Chapel of “Santíssim Crist de l'Empar”; although, with this reform it lost all its primitive old gothic air. The chapel of “la Mare de Déu del Remei” and the sepulchres were also moved to their current place.

Originally, in this spacious chapel, dedicated to “la Mare de Déu del Remei”, was placed an image lowered from the castle (disappeared in the civil war). This chapel occupied the place where the main door is today. We can still appreciate the riches of the baroque dome, on the roof of the current heart, which adorned the chapel of the patron saint of the town.

In the chapel of the “Santíssim Crist de l'Empar” of neoclassical style, as it ruled at the end of the 19th century, there are interesting fresco paintings in the shells by Remigi Soler (1930). In addition, there are four canvases from the XVIII-XX centuries. The chapel is presided over by the image of the Christ, made in 1946 by the Valencian sculptor Josep Maria Ponsoda. It is a copy of the old carving burnt during the civil war, which had been a gift from Archbishop Joan de Ribera in compensation for the loss of the image of “la Mare de Déu de Rebollet”, and as a solution to the conflict of 1601. Recently, the parish restored a baroque canvas of the Cosme and Damian medical saints of the second half of the 18th century.

On the sides of the main altar, two paintings stand out dated in 1966 by the local painter Rafael Fuster Insa. On the right side is the picture of the “Transfiguración del Senyor”, and on the left side the picture of the “Resurrección del Senyor”.

Finally, in 1986, started job of chopping the walls of the nave of the church and it brought to light the pointed solid brick arches and the Gothic ribbed turns that we can now admire. This job ended in 1992.

Least but no last important, were the rehabilitation jobs of the bell tower made between 2001-2002, which consisted of consolidating the structure of the building and recovering the mural decoration of the exterior.