The church of Errenteria as we know it today is a 16th century building, since the old parish church of the town was rebuilt and expanded at that time. We know almost nothing about the ancient building. Over time, the architecture of the church has undergone several changes. In this regard, the ornamentation of the sculptures and images has been the most modified.
The supports attached to the apses, almost all the supports that surround the perimeter of the Church and the first two columns starting from the presbytery are Gothic: they have a circular central body and are attached to small columns corresponding to the ribs of the old narthex. Three listels and two capitals form the impost to indicate the capitals.
It is a building with a basilica plan. It has three naves of equal height and width. Their purpose is to unify the space. Since the heights of the naves are the same, Gothic buttresses are not needed, so solid lintels are used. Small chapels open between them. They have small semicircular openings. Many of these have been blinded when the altars were installed.
Regarding the elements that support the building, although the first pair of Gothic supports was respected, classical columns were later used. They have simple and smooth shafts with a single cylinder; the lintels, on the other hand, are Attic and the capitals are Doric-Tuscan. At the bases of the epistle nave, three columns meet to support the weight of the tower. These immense supports distinguish the style and, for this reason, the church also takes the name “columnaria”.
The twisted and concave ribs join all the bases of the vault and form floral patterns. In some of them, the ribs are straight and represent the silhouette of an octagon. The starry vaults are Gothic and are supported on Renaissance supports. Thus, the “Gothic-Basque” style “managed to combine the two most beautiful conquests of architecture: the classical column, airy and full of harmony, and the ribbed vault, which elevates and furnishes the spaces”.
Already in the 17th century, in 1625 to be precise, the main entrance of the Church was built. The front part of the foot is open on the north wall. A large coffered arch opens into the wall of the church. It ends with the eaves and is surrounded by barely noticeable pilasters. This arch layout was used to protect the entrances and was already used by Juan de Alava in the 16th century in San Esteban in Salamanca. Since then, it has been widely used in our geography to enter Renaissance churches.
The first body of the tower, up to the height of the nave, is undoubtedly original. However, it was renovated by Juan Bautista de Huici in 1825. This tower lasted very little, as the current neo-Gothic finish was completed in 1897.
The stained glass windows were made by the ZETTLER company in Munich. In addition to using established themes, they had to be made on a frosted background. Furthermore, the backgrounds had to be colorless to allow more light to pass through.
The windows were open and Gothic when the World War began. The stained glass windows had already left Munich and were on their way to Amsterdam, but they did not reach the port of Pasaia. Then, the openings were closed with wood and remained there for four long years. When the war ended, the priest finally found them in the port of Amsterdam: the boxes were intact and no glass had broken.
As Lekuona called it, the parish church of Errenteria is an art museum. Inside, it contains fascinating sculptures, such as the altarpiece of the souls; it is part of a 15th-16th century triptych.
