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Church of San Juan de Letrán

Diputación de Málaga
Arriate. Iglesia San Juan de Letrán12

Church of San Juan de Letrán

C/ Cordones, s/n
Zip Code 29350
Monuments and Art > Hermitage and Chapel

The church of  San Juan de Letrán is situated in Calle Cordones, in the village of Arriate. It became an independent population from the moment it separated from Ronda in 1630.

The carpentry work done on the Mudejar framework is the work of the bricklayer Francisco Hernández and the carpenter Andres Valverde, completed in 1629. The belfry of the local parish church, which was designed in 1961,but took several years to build due to economic problems, is the outstanding element on the village’s urban horizon. It was finally inaugurated four years later in 1965. However the restoration work went on into 1965 and included the lateral chapels and the interior. Everything was completed in 1980.

One of the saddest anecdotes told about this parish church is the about the attack it suffered in 1936 after a political meeting held by a socialist minister in the main square. The hysterical inhabitants entered the church and set about destroying the altarpiece, the organ, and the images of Nuestra Señora del Rosario, of the Virgen de los Dolores, of San Valentîn and of Santo Cristo which were normally used at Easter for the street processions. All these objects were more than two hundred years old. On the 18 July the same year the church suffered yet another attack, despite having been closed to worshippers since April that year. Once again the perpetrators set about destroying the religious furniture and the only object that survived relatively in tact was the wooden sculpture of Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno. Its head had been severed from the body and it was kept hidden in different neighbours’ houses before being totally restored at a later.

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