Loboc was the second Jesuit mission established in Bohol, after Baclayon. In late 1596 Padre Juan de Torres began his ministry in a settlement by the banks of the Loboc River, about an hour’s banca ride from the sea. Eventually 11 barangays were convinced to form a single community; the residents cut wood from the forest to build its first church, which was dedicated to San Miguel Arcangel. Tradition locates this in a site called Calvario, Sawang, about 500 yards from the present church. According to an 1886 survey, the oldest books of the parish dated from 1602 (none of these have survived, victims of periodic floods as we shall see). This year is taken by many as the commencement of Loboc as a parish.

            Unlike members of other religious orders whose mission assignments lasted for three years or more, the Jesuits took turns administering to the spiritual needs of their missions. Instead of staying permanently in the parishes, they lived together in a centrally located residence, from where they sallied out in rotation. For the southern part of Bohol, the Jesuits choose Loboc over Baclayon because of its more strategic and defensible position. Loboc, an important trade center with rich freshwater resources, was described by 18^th century chroniclers as the ‘capital’ of Bohol. Although Bohol was not a province at this time, this description implies the central place the town had in the island.

            In 1605 a seminario was established; this was a boarding school for boys, rather different from today’s concept of a school for future priests. Students were drawn from elite Bohol families and were trained to propagate the new faith while imbibing the ways of the new “civilization”. One of the first boarders was Miguel Ayatumo (1593-1609), who was among those baptized by Father Torres, and whose life was cited in a 1673 Jesuit manual on the good Christian life.

            In 1638, a fire that destroyed most of the church stopped at the edge of the tomb of Alonso de Humanes, a Jesuit who died in 1633 and was considered a saint by many; henceforth Loboc became a place of pilgrimage. Writing in the 18^th century, Murillo Velarde credited the rebuilding of the church and the construction of three retablos to the Jesuit Jose Sanchez, who died in 1692. Based on architectural evidence, Javellana (1991) proposes that this church, said to have been finished in 1670, is actually the core of today’s three-storey convento. It is arguably the oldest church building in Bohol.

         The present church, much more capacious than the 1670 church and running perpendicular to it, was built in the 18^th century. The year 1734 has been mentioned by some scholars. As pointed out by Javellana, the carvings of angel heads and insignia of the Jesuits (HIS surmounted by a cross) on the exterior walls are in various stages of completion. He includes that the church must have been in the process of decoration when the Society of Jesus had to leave Bohol in May 1768.

            The Augustinian Recollects took charge of Loboc in November 1768. The first Recollect pastor is said to have constructed the separate octagonal bell tower. Many renovations were instituted by the Recollect Aquilino Bon, parish priest for five terms from 1855 until his demise in Loboc in 1883. He added a portico over the Jesuit façade (1863-1866), one of the first in a long line of portico-facades on Bohol churches; roofed the church with tiles in 1873; and built the hexagonal mortuary chapel a short distance from the façade (1867-1868). His successors, including Jose Sanchez (namesake of the Jesuit who worked here two  centuries earlier) re-enforced the walls with stone buttresses (1891-1892), due to the effects of previous tremors, and added porticoes over the side entrances to minimize rainwater getting inside the church (1895-1896).

Exterior

            The church occupies land along the riverbank; its length is parallel to the river. Until the middle of this century, the space between the church and the river was unoccupied, except for the road running through it. As one approached the town on a riverboat, the unhampered view of the great church must have been awe-inspiring (it still is).

            The church is cruciform, and its crossing is covered by a sunken pyramidal roof like that seen in other parts of the region such as Valencia (Bohol), Mandaue (Cebu) and Lazi (Siquijor). To the left of the façade is mortuary church; some 30 meters away from the church, near the  river bank, stands the octagonal belltower.

            The portico-façade, built 1863-1866, has niches with the statues of San Pedro and San Pablo. The pediment, not of stone but of galvanized iron, is decorated with wooden bas-reliefs. In its center is the papal tiara over crossed keys, symbolic of St. Peter and by extension of the Church. Below them, in between the arches, are medallions with symbols of the Augustinians (a flaming heart under a bishop’s tasseled hat) and of St. Peter (the papal tiara, a bishop’s crook and crosier with patriarchal cross).

            The inner facade pertains to the 1734 church of the Jesuits. Both sides of the main entrance are covered with intricately carved pilasters, capitals and blind niches. The pilasters are of two types: fluted and medallioned. Only the medallioned pilasters to the right carry portraits of saints, but the weathered (or unfinished?) carving does not allow us to identify who they are. The carved decorations continue on the pair of towers that sprout from both ends of the façade. These towers may have been more decorative than functional because of the extremely cramped space inside. Volutes adorn both levels of the towers, but the upper ones are mere traces.

            In 1969 the floor level all around was raised by almost a meter because of the floods, so that the lower portions of many walls were obscured.