After the reconquest of the village by D. Afonso Henriques, this temple would have belonged to the Order of the Knights of Santiago, who built or rebuilt the church, belonging to the royal patronage and, by donation, to the prior of the Convent of São Vicente de Fora. In the 12th century, King D. Sancho I donated it to the Order of Santiago, becoming, together with the suffragan churches of Óbidos, integrated into the bishopric of Lisbon.
According to tradition, in the 16th century, King Manuel I ordered the rebuilding of the church, badly damaged by earthquakes, following his stay in Arruda fleeing the plague. He carried out renovation and expansion works that culminated in the reign of King John III, as is the case of the Manueline portal, whose date, 1531, can be seen in the cobbled churchyard.
On Thanksgiving for the royal family having emerged unscathed from the epidemic and faith in the miraculous Saint, the patron saint of the church was changed to that of Nossa Senhora da Salvação, celebrating festivities in her honour every 15th of August.
With a longitudinal plan of mendicant influence, with three naves of five bays, it has a quadrangular 16th century bell tower, with polylobed bell towers and topped by a pyramidal spire.
The Manueline portal is the main element of contemplation at the entrance to the property, combining the canopy arch with a curtain with phytomorphic decoration. With an ornamental repertoire typical of Manueline architecture, inspired by popular art engravings and ephemeral decorations, it presents a continuous and symmetrical decoration of two undulating stems, supporting leaves and flowers of the gourd that rise from the mouth of a winged dragon (left) and a dog (right) sitting on small drums with mouthpieces, joining in the clasp under a stone coat of arms with the Five Wounds of Christ. On each vegetal corbel rest two naked human figures in relief: a young man and an old man.
The altarpiece, baroque from the first phase of the National Style, is in gilded woodwork with two pairs of pseudo-Solomonic columns decorated with vines and vine, framing the dressing room and throne with the image of the patron saint. The image of Nossa Senhora da Salvação was restored in the 16th century, which suggests that part of the primitive sculpture, complete and seated, was modified, giving rise to the need to dress it due to its “imperfections”. Tradition has it that she owned a chair with a silver back that Masséna's soldiers took, along with silver cult objects.
The walls of the chancel are covered with figurative tiles with biblical scenes in the first register, Sacrifice of Abraham and Scala Coeli from the workshop of António de Oliveira Bernardes, and in the second register, of an architectural type, with cartouches, volutes and friezes framing the paintings 16th century with 18th century gilded carved frames. Dating back to the 18th century is the ceiling of the Blessed Sacrament that decorates this chancel.
From the 16th century Portuguese master, Mestre de Arruda dos Vinhos, six boards are decorating the main chapel: Sant'Ana e S. Joaquim, Visitation, Death of the Virgin, Coronation of the Virgin, S. João Baptista, S. Pedro and a seventh next to the baptistery, Assumption of the Virgin.
The chapel of Santíssimo Sacramento has a round arch covered in gilded and green carving, with two side niches, a tabernacle with 17th-century paintings and a proto-baroque screen with a biblical couplet, formerly belonging to a stall in this Church. It exhibits cut-out figurative tiles from the 18th century on the walls alluding to the life of Saint Francis of Assisi.
In the naves, carpets with varied polychrome tile patterns and rectangular figurative panels can be admired: S. Cristóvão and Perseu e Andrómeda, the latter also associated with the legend of St. George and the Dragon, as well as an 18th-century Carrara marble sculpture, Santo António com o Menino, presumably designed by the architect Mateus Vicente de Oliveira, and a 15th-century Gothic Pietá in polychrome stone.
Attached to the last column is an octagonal pulpit on a column. There is also a painting of the Annunciation from the 16th century, mannerist and Nordic, by an unknown author.
In 1744, the high choir was built, with an undulating Baroque structure with a balustrade where you can see paintings by the Master of Lourinhã from the 16th century: Angel of the Annunciation, Virgin of the Annunciation, Nativity and Adoration of the Magi.
In 1810, during the third French invasion, the English officer John Kincaid (who later wrote his memoirs) revealed a curious episode. Arriving in the village of Arruda, he was surprised by a church that had not been damaged in the invasions and that had been built in a "style of magnificence". Upon entering the monument, John Kincaid himself and Captain Simmons found the body of a poor elderly woman, who had died before the altar. Deducing that she had been unable to flee from the Napoleonic troops with the rest of the population, the two Englishmen decided that she should have “more glory in the grave than she appeared to have enjoyed on this side of it". Joining efforts, they managed to lift the slab of one of the church's tombs and lay the body there, finally covering it with great care.
By decree of March 27, 1944, the Mother Church of Arruda dos Vinhos is classified as a Public Interest Property (IIP), a classification owed to Professor Reynaldo dos Santos, who will have mentioned its artistic heritage, namely the sculpture, tiles and painting, along with 16th century architecture.
