This is undoubtedly one of the most emblematic churches in the Douro Sul, restored between 1953 and 1954 by the General Directorate of Buildings and National Monuments. Unusual at your disposal. Unusual in the richness and variety of its sculptural work, concentrated on the side portal and the façade facing the boulder. It is also unusual for its legendary foundation, associated with the story of D. Thedon and D. Rausendo, two knights of the Christian Reconquest, and the martyr Princess Ardínia, who, out of love for D. Thedon, exchanged the Muslim religion for Christianity.

After the foundation by D. Thedon and D. Rausendo and other hermits who fled from the Moors, which legend places around 991, there is a first stage of probable connection to the Benedictine Order. However, in 1145 Abbot D. Mendo promoted the reform of the community, which was achieved with the adhesion to the Cistercian Order.
The ornamentation of the building is one of its greatest attractions. On the northside portal, the tympanum decorated with an Agnus Dei (Lamb of God), depicted with flexed paws and a Latin inscription, on the arch’s closure, where one can read “The Lord keeps your comings and goings, now and forever” (Psalm 121:8). There are other inscriptions, on an ashlar on the wall, and likewise in the chancel, as well as a funerary inscription engraved on the lower half of the separate tomb cover.
The façade facing the cliff has a more luxuriant decoration, with an oriental influence, combining a trepanned cross in the center of the tympanum, symbolically representing Jesus Christ, with zoomorphic elements, watchful lions, which also appear in the south portal of Rates, Póvoa do Varzim, with head turned outwards and eyes open, guarding the entrance to the temple and its sacred interior.