The neighbor or visitor who arrives at the hermitage of Sant Josep de Xàtiva can enjoy an enviable environment, one of the best that the city has to offer. El Bellveret (beautiful view), a natural viewpoint that offers spectacular views of the city and a large part of the Costera, a statue of Manuel Boix on the Valencian pilota and part of the old Roman wall. In an outbuilding adjoining the hermitage, a renowned restaurant has been installed for years and has also occupied part of the environment that was public at its time. But what the citizens of Sebastián believed belonged to them has been the property of the Catholic Church since 2004, which has also known how to commercialize the space. As elDiario.es was able to confirm, the abbot of Xàtiva at the time, Arturo Climent Bonafé, registered 8,000 square meters in the name of the Archbishopric of Valencia that have always been considered public. In addition, it also occupies the public highway.
According to sources familiar with the registration process and confirmed by the Xàtiva City Council, the former abbot Climent Bonafé put the public lands in the name of the archbishopric, taking advantage of a privilege that came from the Franco regime and which assimilated the Catholic Church to the administration, the bishops to notaries.
In this sense, and since the lands that also touch the famous Bellveret viewpoint did not appear in the name of the municipality or a private individual, they were registered in the Land Registry in the name of the Church.
The same sources explain that in the operation there was “evident bad faith” because in 1995 the town hall bought from La Seu (the church of Xàtiva) the fields around Bellveret. Even the public road that passes next to the hermitage and connects to the castle of Xàtiva was registered.
The hermitage, only the building, which in the Middle Ages belonged to the carpenters’ guild, was transferred to La Seu in the 40s of the last century. Currently, the place of worship is used once a year for the city’s Fallas commissions to offer offerings to their patron Saint Joseph on the great day of the festival. What works at full capacity and all year round is the restaurant, which the church rents in a house adjoining the hermitage. In addition, its service has grown so much that it occupies part of the land that was public to set up its terrace and organize large events.
The City Council has never abandoned the land adjacent to the hermitage or the Bellveret. In addition, the area was endowed with public resources for the enjoyment of the inhabitants in the 80s and since then its maintenance with public funds has been taken into account. “There have even been excavations in the Roman ruins,” explains a person familiar with the record.
Behind the hermitage is the Porta de l’Aljama, which is the door, according to the Book of Feaststhrough which Jaume I entered upon his arrival in Xàtiva. Every year, its symbolism makes the institutional event of October 9th celebrated. The building was an old mosque that was later Christianized. The hermitage is one of the oldest places in the city and the surrounding lands have an incalculable value for Xàtiva because there are remains from the Iberian and Roman eras, from the first settlers of the city. The walls themselves have been considered an asset of cultural interest and the Bellveret is the viewpoint par excellence of Xàtiva. It is a land with a strong sentimental content for the socarrats.
