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Months ago, I wrote about my trip to Anini-y. I really meant to write about the town’s impressive Catholic, which is also Antique’s only surviving and oldest Catholic Church, the Church of St. John of Nepomoceno.
Legend has it that two fishermen established the settlement in Anini-y between 1600-30, eventually making it a community of fishers who moved here from Asluman (Asloman), a hamlet of Hamtic, which is the oldest settlement in the province.
Until 1862, Anini-y was a visita of Hamtic and priests would
come here every now and then, where they would hold mass, preach the gospel, and evangelize the
locals. The conversion of locals to Catholicism was primarily the work of Fr.
Hipólito Casimiro and Fray Felíx Rojay Zuñiga. A decree in 1861 eventually
established Anini-y as an independent parish.
The church’s first structure was laid around 1630. The church foundations still exist to this day, which measures 33 x 13 meters.
The lack of personnel in Anini-y caused the influx of
Cebuano seculars to run the parish. Antique governor Don Joaquin Varón
(1849-53) requested the Augustinians to take charge “so that better buildings
would rise in Antique’s skylines.”
A second church, which comes in greater length, although
quite narrower at 48 x 12.5 meters was built close to the earlier church.
The church's facade is a single rectangle crowned by
triangular pediment, with Baroque influences. Two
pilasters edge the domed main portal, which is made grander by rosettes flank
the arch. This pattern is emphasized by the arches over the saints' niches,
which are in place on both sides of the main portal, and are each surmounted by
a rose window. The pediment rises at a tight angle, each corner featuring an
urn-shaped finial (Augustinian
Churches and History).
A three-tiered belfry rises to the left of the church. The base is a solid, almost cubic structure that is directly annexed to the main church. The upper levels are octagonal, but are wide enough to make seem almost rounded. A dome sits atop the bell tower, surmounted with a cross (Augustinian Churches and History).
In 1875, the first Augustinian priest, Fray Romualdo Crespo
was installed.
The parish laid vacant during the Philippine Revolution and
was eventually take over by the Aglipayans in 1902.
In 1906, the British Catholic missionary congregation, the Mill Hill Fathers, took charge of Antique. Two years later, Anini-y returned to the Catholic faith the fathers and the fathers started running the parish in 1908.
The church was seriously damaged in 1902. The structure
further deteriorated after an 8.2 magnitude and intensity 9 earthquake struck
Panay in 1948.
The church was not fully restored until Fr. William Erickweld,
a Mill Hill missionary, undertook the restoration in 1973.
