Saint Anthony's Church
Saint Anthony’s Church, the Igreja de Santo António de Lisboa, anchors Lisbon’s devotion to Fernando de Bulhões—Saint Anthony of Padua—who was born in Lisbon in 1195. Tradition places the church on the site of his family home, where a small chapel appeared in the 15th century and was later rebuilt in the early 16th century during King Manuel I’s reign. In 1730, under King John V, the church was rebuilt and redecorated, but the 1755 Lisbon earthquake left it in ruins, with only the main chapel standing. The present building is a reconstruction: after 1767, it was fully rebuilt in a Baroque-Rococo design by Mateus Vicente de Oliveira, on a similar footprint to the earlier temple. The church’s calendar matters too. Since June 13, a procession to Lisbon Cathedral winds through Alfama, marking Saint Anthony’s day, one of Lisbon’s “Popular Saint Festivities.” In 1982, Pope John Paul II visited here, inaugurating a statue of the saint.
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