The first reference feligresía San Gines Padriñán contained in a document dated in the century x , one where the same belonged to the archbishopric states Iria Flavia . In 1120 , by decree of Pope Calixto II , Diego Gelmírez , a friend of the pontiff, was appointed archbishop of Santiago de Compostela , absorbing all the properties of Iria Flavia, which consisted of the congregation of San Ginés as well as the town and the port. For its part, in said document, drawn up in Latin and transcribed in the 18th century , it is stated that King Ordoño II of León, "On the fourth of the kalendas of February of the era of 953 ", had granted the lordship to the bishop of Iria Flavia Sisnando Menéndez . In 1105 , Queen Urraca I of León and her husband Raimundo de Borgoña ceded the town of San Ginés to the Monastery of San Juan de Poyo , while on February 29 , 1116 4The queen donated the Soloveira and Cornazo preserves to the monastery "with its men, church, terms and ancient sites of the Church of San Ginés ...", since Urraca I considered that these properties had been usurped from Poyo. 2 This decision would be ratified by King Alfonso XI of Castile on February 17 , 1303 .
The church, built at the end of the 15th century and originally located in Aldariz, was moved around 1670 to its current location.It is known that in 1514 the temple had already undergone a reconstruction that framed it in the Renaissance or Elizabethan Gothic style . Likewise, the church suffered a fire at the end of the 16th century due to the incursion of the pirate Francis Drake in the Pontevedra estuary, also suffering in 1622 the attack of ten warships from North Africa and the theft of the bell of the temple in1719 by the English in the context of the War of the Spanish Succession .
The church, which has undergone multiple transformations over the years, has a simple façade framed in the maritime style, popular in Galicia between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries . The most outstanding element is a stone image of the Virgen del Carmen with an aureole in the shape of a scallop shell which is located in a niche located on the portico (which is believed to have been initially semicircular) and under a small rose window carved in stone, the bell tower being found to the left of the structure, which has stone walls reinforced with buttresses. According to the inscription preserved on the access door to the bell tower, in the year1700 the beginning of the reconstruction of the upper bodies took place with stone transported by sea from the quarries of Chancelas, in Samieira, being the master builder Silvestre de Pazos, the parish priest Francisco Varela Sarmiento de Valladares, and Domingo de Ledo y Mateo Pose the butlers
The interior, with a single rectangular floor plan, has an apse narrower than the nave and a single chapel, which has a rectangular shape and a star-shaped rib vault with five keys as well as a pointed arch at the entrance. The nave houses four sections and is covered by a wooden ceiling supported by two pointed ashlar arches which rest on square pillars.
Of the five altarpieces present in the temple, all of them in the Baroque style , the most outstanding is the one that presides over the main chapel. This altarpiece, of garnet, green and gold polychrome, houses in the center, under a semicircular arch and above the tabernacle, a carving of San Ginés de Arlés characterized by a beardless face, pallium clothing, a knife in the neck, a palm, a pen and an inkwell. 10 The rest of the images that adorn the structure represent, under semicircular arches framed by stipes, San Juan Bautista on the left and San Roqueto the right, a crucified Christ is found surrounded by angels in the attic of the altarpiece, while under the altar there is an image of the recumbent Christ guarded within an urn.
In the Chapel of the Purification, a series of frescoes and remains of graves more than 500 years old were discovered in 2016 due to renovations.
In front of the altarpiece of the Chapel of San José, behind which it is believed that several frescoes may remain hidden, as in the case of the Chapel of Purification, 13 there is a carving of the Nazarene Christ, an image of Our Lady of Help and a Virgin of Fatima , while at the entrance of the temple there are three wooden carvings which represent Santa Rosalía de Palermo , San Antonio de Padua and Nuestra Señora de los Dolores , the latter two being dressed, the most venerated being Santa Rosalía , the Virgen del Carmen and San Ginés, which are taken out in procession during their respective festivities as well as other carvings, such as that of San Roque.
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