The parish Church of San Martino and Santa Giusta is located in the highest part of Montenerodomo, about 1200 meters high, which offers a fascinating view. The majestic parish stands out in front of Maiella giving the impression that the town is suspended between heaven and earth. The churchyard stretches to Piazza Benedetto Croce with two ornamental columns on the entrance stairs that come from the archaeological site of Iuvanum. On the elegant stone façade above the main door an exquisite rose window is set, taken from the disused Evangelical Church.

The parish has medieval origin and was built in the middle of XIV century as the De Thomasis family chapel, indeed it is close to their mansion, now gone into ruins. The building is the result of the union of two churches San Martino di Tours and Santa Giusta in 1811 and it has undergone several works along the years, after the Maiella earthquake in 1933, when the bell tower at the top centre of the façade collapsed, and after the German bombing in 1944 which partially destroyed the dome. The last works ended in 2006.

The baroque church has a single nave with an apse surrounded by an exquisite wood choir of the eighteenth century and a modern marble altar. Here, the most loved saints of Montenerodomo devotion are worshipped, among which the patron San Fedele da Sigmaringa, a German Capuchin friar tortured by the Calvinist Protestants in 1622 who is celebrated with a town feast on the first Saturday of August each year. On the right, there are three glazed windows by Mellini from Florence and the marble baptismal font. The tower bell was rebuilt in 1984 detached from the church and covered by a pyramidal pinnacle.

[Credits | Text: Ottavio Di Renzo De Laurentis | Translation: Mirella Rapa | Voice and music: Studio Qreate | Photo: Laura Di Biase]