St. Anthony's Church

The Church of St. Anthony in Lisbon is a Catholic church built on the site of the house where St. Anthony of Padua (Antony of Lisbon) swarmed. The church is located in the historical district of Alfama, directly adjacent to the west side of the cathedral of the city. The church is part of the Archdiocese of Lisbon.

Saint Anthony (Fernando de Buillon) was born in 1195 into a wealthy family of a Lisbon knight. After studying in the city of Coimbra, the young man enters the Franciscan order, taking the name Antony. Traveling around the world with a mission, he stopped in Italy, where he settled in the city of Padua. During his lifetime, Anthony was very popular, so a year after his death he was listed as a saint.

On the place where the house of St. Anthony stood, in the XV century a chapel was built, which is rebuilt a century later, during the reign of Manuel I. Near the chapel, in the former Senate building, the brotherhood of St. Anthony was organized. In 1730, the church was reconstructed and re-decorated, but the Lisbon earthquake in 1755 completely erased it from the face of the earth, leaving only a small chapel. In 1767, under the direction of the architect Mateusz Vicente da Oliver, the temple was rebuilt in the Rocco-Baroque style. This is the church of St. Anthony that we see today.