Church of St. Onuphrius (Estubeny)

The patron saint of the parish church of Estubeny is the anchorite Onuphrius. In 1535, a Morisco rectory was first established for Spanish Muslims who converted to Christianity that was independent from the Collegiate Church of Xàtiva. In 1574, the patriarch San Juan de Ribera ordered the construction of a church, given that until then mass had been held in the home of the feudal lord. The catastrophic earthquake of 1784, whose epicentre was in Montesa, ruined the holy building, which was rebuilt a few years later. The work was completed in the 20th century with a free standing bell tower.

The Church of Estubeny is austere, simple and small. The façade, with a curved profile and door and window lintels, is undecorated. An inscription on the façade reminds us that both this and the rest of the building were restored in 1880. The interior of the church is structured around a single nave with four sections, built from mortar and masonry. The roof is a barrel vault held up by adjoining pilasters. It only has one side chapel, built in the 1790s that is devoted to Our Lady of Sorrows and covered with a smooth, flat plaster ceiling. The presbytery has a flat headwall. The main altar is neo-baroque.

The bell tower, curiously separate from the layout of the church and located behind it, is a rectangular prism with brick walls. These are reinforced, at the corners and cornices, with ashlars and mouldings made from white limestone. The bell tower houses three bronze bells from the Roses de Atzeneta d’Albaida foundry: the largest or the Mare de Deu dels Dolors (Our Lady of Sorrows) dates back to 1913; that of the Christ of la Buena Dicha dates to 1953, and the treble or smallest bell is from last year.