Kuiper's Amersfoort

In the Beginning

The Miraculous Statue and the Tower

The Catholic Church Goes Underground

The Declaration of Independence

The Catholic Church Re-Emerges

An Embarrassing Rock

A Choice of Churches

Choice Removed

Resurrected Rock

The Kuipers' Parishes

* Why did my father (A.H. Sr. - Ton) always go to the other church, just around the corner from ours?

* In fact, why were there two Roman Catholic churches within shouting distance of each other?

* What's the big deal about some puny rock...

* ... and why are Amersfoorters disparagingly called keietrekkers?

* Why were devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary so important when we were till children at home?

* Where did my brother Frank get his name?

What follows is a very selected of history of Amersfoort and its the churches and their influence in our family history. It doesn't mention such famous Amersfoorters as Johan van Oldebarneveldt and Piet Mondriaan. You can look those up in an encyclopaedia or on the Web. The facts related here may be harder to track down.

Amersfoort arose where the confluence of the Lunterse beek, de Barneveldse beek, and some smaller creeks forms the river Eem (pronounced "aim"). In a country that's mostly water, or so it seems to me now, a beek or creek can be a healthy little river. Ton used to kyak on them, which you can't do very often on the Los Angeles River.

There was a ford at this place, hence the name Eemers Voorde for the little town that established itelf there. In 1259, this town was granted a city charter, and at about this time the first wall and moat were build around it. To put that in context, this was three years after Thomas of Aquinas (I pause for a modest bow) presented his master's thesis. Believe it or not, this work was so controversial that the Pope himself had to invervene to allow it to be presented (just in case you think Thomas Aquinas was a reactionary conservative old fuddy-duddy who's down on The Pill which he never heard of). It is also about a hundred years after the imaginary but famous Brother Cadfael was solving murder mysteries in Schrewsbury, and more that two centuries before Copernicus was born. So, we're talking old!

Of the gates, only the Kamperbinnenpoort(1) at the north east end of the Langestraat remains today. The Muirhuizen(2) later replaced this wall, after the city had become larger and a second wall was built, but the moat remains.

The original St. Joris Church, on the east side of the central Hof(3), was also built in the 13th century. Initially, there was just a look-out tower, very useful for defense in flat Holland. Later a small church was added, enlarged by stages to form a simple cruciform church. Only the tower has survived. The church in those days was not only was it used for religious services, but it also served as a kind of mall where children played and people strolled around, chatting with friends, even doing business.

The entire inner city was destroyed by fire in 1340. The St. Joriskerk was rebuilt in stages. The present version of the St. Joriskerk dates from around 1534.

This is the story: In December 1444, a young girl from Nijkerk came to Amerfoort to become a nun in the St. Agnes Cloister. She had with her a wooden statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but it was such a simple statue that she became ashamed of it and threw it into the canal. Another woman, Margriete Gyssen, dreamt three times that she should recover the statue. She went to the Kamperbinnenpoort and there found the statue lying still in rapidly streaming water (4). She put the statue up at home and lit a few candles with it. The candles would not burn down. The statue was taken to the Lady Chapel, and subsequently miracles were reported there. People began to make pilgrimages to Amersfoort, and the good priests made a tidy profit. So, it was decided to build the Onze Lieve Vrouwe Toren, with the little side tower symbolysing the child Jesus. This worthy expression of gratitude surely did the pilgrimage business no harm, just as it helps the tourist business today. (It must be said that tower building was "in" during the 1400's in Holland, so one may wonder which came first, the miraculous statue or the desire to build a tower.)

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther posted his "95 theses", opposing the sale of indulgences(5), on the door of the Palast Church in Wittenberg. The Church decided to have a close look at Luther's theological beliefs and determined that they were heretical. In 1520, Pope Leo X issued a public letter excommunicating Luther. Luther publicly burned it and appealed to the German nobles, invoking their sense of national pride, to take Church reform into their own hands by seizing Church property. By 1522, Luther had laid down the foundations of his own "evangelical" church. In each state, the prince was also the head of the church. Before such conversions took place, mobs throughout Germanic Europe protested the excesses of the Church by destroying religious symbols. Many German states converted officially by seizing churches. They were redecorated to take on the simple, white-washed, plain-glass style characteristic of Protestantism.

Amersfoort finally "reformed", i.e. went over to Calvinism, in 1579. In 1580, the St. Joriskerk came permanently into Calvinist hands. The pastor went into hiding in the Muurhuizen where he found a suitable place between the Langestraat and the Kerkstraat for conducting religious services in secret. This secret church was dedicated to St. Willibrod and St. Boniface. With the collapse of the Church hierarchy in the Netherlands, our country became a mission region. In 1606, the first apostolic vicar for the Holland missions officially recognized the mission station of St. Willibrod and St. Boniface.

The Onze Lieve Vrouwe Kapel and toren were taken over by the government. The miraculous statue was moved to St. Georgius Church(6). The Lady Chapel served various functions after that, including that of military magazine. In 1787, the stored gunpowder was set off by a careless spark, exploded, and destroyed the chapel, but the tower remains.

Well, actually, that's what it was, though history records it as the Act of Abjuration, 26 July 1581. I called it the Declaration of Independence to remind our American friends that theirs was not the first democratic republic of modern times. The States of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht and the Ommelands (now Groningen) had enacted the "Union of Utrecht" on 23 January 1579 forming a loose confederation, still nominally loyal to the King of Spain. Various other cities and states joined during the following year. After the Act of Abjuration, the United Provinces then shopped around for a monarch, since monarchies were all anyone knew about in those days, but Henri III of France and Elizabeth I of England declined and so, by default, they were a republic. It took Napoleon to convert the Republic into a monarchy, but that's another story.

The Spanish did not yield gracefully to the Dutch ambitions for self- government and, except for a truce from 1609 to 1621, the war dragged on until 1848. In 1629, Spanish troops conquered the city and the pastor of the mission station, now no longer secret, celebrated mass in St. Joriskerk again. Ten days later, the Spanish were forced to retreat. Pastor Bloem and his assistant priest went into hiding, fearing Protestant reprisals. After a few months, the most citizens felt that Pastor Bloem had been innocent of treason, and probably saved the church from pillaging by the Spaniards.

In 1534, Ignacius of Loyola had founded the Jesuit order, to serve as missionaries overseas and as theological shocktroops against the Protestants. During the eleven weeks in 1629 when the city priests were in hiding, a young Jesuit, Jordanus van Wenckum, came to Amersfoort, his birth place, to visit his sick mother. While he was there, he temporarily assumed the pastoral care of a number of the citizens. When Pastor Bloem came out of hiding, van Wenckem withdrew but, in response to pleas to stay, he promised to ask for permission to return. Because he was a native son, the apostolic vicar allowed him to come back to assist Pastor Bloem. In 1632, they were both taken prisoner to stand trial in the Hague for collaboration with the Spanish. Pastor Bloem was exiled, but Fr. van Wenckum was found innocent and returned to Amersfoort. He died in 1636 after caring for plague victims. The Jesuit order promptly sent as a replacement the son of a distinguished Utrecht aristocrat, Adriaan van Rhenesse van Baer. (His connections made it hard for the city magistrates to refuse him permission.) He died in 1647, also of the plague. The Jesuits having thus established a foothold in Amersfoort, sent another replacement.

Another native son, baptized Johan Baptista van Langevelt, who was a Capucian monk with the adopted name of Gabriël van Amersfoort, tried continually to be stationed in his birthplace. In 1637, apparently without permission, he moved in with his sister (in the northern Muurhuizen between the Nieuweweg and the Langestraat) and established a mission. The three lay priests and one Jesuit who were already in Amersfoort were not happy with this interloper, and bad reports regularly reached the Capucian prior and the apostolic vicar. In spite of orders from the prior to leave, he managed several times to get Rome's permission to extend his stay, and remained in Amersfoort until his death in 1651. Curiously, the Capucian prior promptly sent successor, Hippolytus van Rijssel, to replace him.

In 1652, Rome sent a new lay pastor, Godefridus Loeff(7), to Amersfoort. He promptly directed Fr. Hippolytis to leave, but the latter said he could only take orders from the prior. Loeff went to Brussels and returned with such orders. Hippolytus formally took his departure from his flock, but said he could not travel due to illness. Furthermore, some of the faithful declared that since they were paying the rather stiff license fee required to hold religious services, they should decide for themselves who they would have. Loeff himself could not afford the fee, and eventually gave up and left.

Meanwhile, in 1652, the Jesuits obtained permission from the apostolic vicar to establish a permanent mission station with all the rights of a parish. The mission was dedicated to St. Francis Xavier. (Francis Xavier was one of Ignatius Loyola's close friends at university, and became one of the first Jesuits in 1534.) In 1662, Rome sent a valuable relic of St. Francis. However, in 1665, the Jesuit pastor was banned and the little church was razed to the ground. Another Jesuit native of Amersfoort, who came to live with his father, took his place. In 1666 another native Jesuit, Simon van Velzen, succeeded him. During his term, a new church was built approximately where the present parish church stands.

A Carmelyte brother, Everardus van Broekel, appears to have come to assist Fr. Gabriël, also without permission. Eventually, he established himself in the Kromme Elleboogsteeg. He was also subject to ecclesiastical censure, but that was lifted in 1672, when he received official permission to stay. By 1680, the oratory of the Carmelyte was elevated to a mission station and dedicated to the Ascension of Our Lady (Onze Lieve Vrouw ter Hemelopneming). This little mission became quickly popular, perhaps because Amersfoorters still had a tradition of devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Van Broekel died in 1699. His successor, Fr. Leo, was able to obtain permission from the city magistrates to build a little church in the Kromme Elleboogsteeg, under the condition that it should not look like a church. However, the magistrates, under pressure from the lay priests, did not allow another Carmelyte to replace Fr. Leo when he died in 1704. The Jesuit priest assumed the care of the congregation until 1709, when Carmelyte Fr. Ildephonsus van Duyst van Voorhoudt was able to use the influence of his cousin, A.F. Baron van Reede, Lord Renswoude, to obtain permission from the city magistrates to take over the mission.

The late 17th century was important in Amersfoort history for an entirely different reason. (Comic relief time!) The young nobleman Everhard Meyster discovered a nine ton boulder on his property. He made a bet with friends that Amersfoorters were crazy enough to drag this into their city. With a suitable inducement of lots of beer and cake, he convinced some 400 citizens to drag it to the Varkensmarkt at the south end of the Langestraat, and made 3000 guilders. As a result, in 1661, Amersfoorters were saddled with a useless rock, a damaged reputation, and the nickname "keietrekkers". So, in 1672, they dug a hole, roled in the boulder, and hoped that time would heal the damage.

By 1700, there were four parishes in Amersfoort: the original St. Willibrordus and Bonifatius in the Muirhuizen, another lay parish St. Georgius on 't Zand, the Jesuit mission parish of St. Francis Xavier a few doors to the west on 't Zand, and the Carmelyte mission parish of Our Lady of the Ascension in the Kromme Elleboogsteeg. In spite of increasing tolerance for Catholicism in Holland, Rome continued to administer Holland as a mission region, to the annoyance of the lay clergy. By 1713, they had formed their own hierarchy, had chosen the pastor of St. Georgius as their first archbishop, and separated themselves from Rome. The Oud-Bisschoppelijke(8) or Oud Katholieke Church continues until this day. The parish in Hoogland, a town just north of Amersfoort and now part of the city, also went over to the Old Catholic hierarchy.

Many faithful in Amersfoort and Hoogland started to go to the two Roman Catholic mission parishes in Amersfoort. By about 1760, the provinces of Holland and Utrecht had decided not to tolerate the "foreign" influence of the missionaries any longer. Both mission churches in Amersfoort were put in charge of lay clergy, though ones loyal to Rome.

In 1783, the pastor of de Elleboog parish obtained permission to build a new church at its present location. In 1819 a tower was added, but apparently it was deficient and replaced with the present tower in 1820. In 1813, the newly arrived pastor of 't Zand was charged with building a new church too. The church we know today was completed in 1817. The organ was added in 1819.

In 1853, the hierarchy of the Roman Church was restored in the Netherlands. The mission churches became proper parishes. In 1854, Monsignor de Beer was charged by the bishop with the problem of defining the parish boundaries in Amersfoort. His proposal was elegantly simple: let the waters of the Eem River, the Spui, the Lange Gracht and the Korte Gracht which naturally divide Amersfoort in two be the boundary. However, the part of Amersfoort which thereby included de Elleboog had only 5300 citizens, whereas the other part, which included 't Zand, had 7100. The pastor of de Elleboog found this an unfair division, but it seems that he and the Monsignor were on a friendly basis and so the final border, from the south end of the Spui, followed the Nieuweweg, de Vijver, then diagonally across de Hof, along the Nieuwestraat, across and north along the Zuidsingel, down St. Andriesstraat, and then south along the Heiligenbergerweg. Catholics were required (well, Ton says "strongly encouraged", but we know what that meant where pastors were involved) to go to the church of the parish in which they lived. Yet this was rather hard to enforce because the two churches were not 200 meters apart!

In 1859, after the trauma of this administrative decision had worn off a little, Amersfoorters received another shock. Workmen laying gas pipes under the Varkensmarkt encountered that bloody boulder again! It was hurriedly reburied. However, some citizens now developed an affection for it. When it was decided to repave the Varkensmarkt in 1903, they urged the city museum to recover it and put it on display. And so it received a home at the corner of the Utrechtsestraat and Plantsoen-West. In 1932 it moved to Plantsoen-Zuid at the Arnhemsestraat. My father Ton saw this bit of recreated history. The kei was put on a flatbed trailer and drawn by hundreds of screaming kids who were again rewarded, but this time with a kogelflesje, a "bullet" bottle of classic Coca Cola. During the war years, it spent some time above and below ground in de Hof. In 1946, it moved back to Plantsoen-Zuid, where we remember it.

The Kuiper family lived originally at Zevenhuizen 5-7 (seen outlined in green in the photo above, nestled up against the St. Joriskerk), a few paces north of the parochial border. From 1916 until 1928, they lived at Hooglandse Weg 30. So, for many years, they were members of 't Zand.

Around 1928, they moved into flats above their new store on the Langestraat (outlined in blue to the right of the photo) at the corner of the Stovestraat, just one small block south of the border. Now this was a hard thing because in those days Sunday church was not just a matter of getting a required mass out of the way. Hein Kuiper was a person of stature in the parish. He rented a seat for himself at 25 guilders per year and one for his wife at 15 guilders. (To put this in context, the usual Sunday donation was 10 cents -- you can do the math.) Hein reached an accomodation with the pastor of the Elleboog: he and Grandma could continue as parishioners of 't Zand, but the children were to be brought up in de Elleboog. (That was was a considerable financial concession for the Elleboog pastor!) So, for instance, when around 1937, Oom Ad said his first solemn high mass, it was in de Elleboog. My brothers and I were baptized in de Elleboog and went to church there with my mother. I sang in the choir. My father, however, would usually leave us at the church door and nip across to the old Kuiper parish church around the corner, where he had his social and emotional ties. With the decline of the Catholic Church in Holland, the parishes were merged and the Elleboog church was closed. When I last saw it, its tower had been removed and it housed an architectural institute. Such important historical artifacts as the font in which I was baptized are now in the St. Francis church.

B.G.J. Elias and P.C.B. Maarschalkerweerd, Amersfoort verleden tijd (Elmar, Rijswijk, 1988).

J.I. Israel, The Dutch republic (Clarendon Press, Oxford,1995)

C. Oorthuys and H. Molendijk, Dit is Amersfoort (Uitgeverij Contact, Amsterdam, 1957).

W. v.d. Pas and (my uncle) H. Kuiper , 1630-1980: Uit het Dagboek van Frans Zand en Maria Elleboog (printed by Trepico, Hooglanderveen, 1980).

Picture Credits

Map of Old Central Amersfoort: Amersfoort verleden tijd.

Onze Lieve Vrouwe Toren: Dit is Amersfoort.

Aerial photo of Central Amersfoort: Dit is Amersfoort.

1) To the east of the inner city lies the Kamp, which to this day has military buildings. The port in the inner (binnen wall which gives access to this area is thus the Kamperbinnenpoort. Actually, this poort lies on the outside of the singel, so it was probably not the original main gate, which may have fallen into disrepair when the second city wall was built. The Kamperbinnenpoort also decayed and was almost demolished in the 19th century. It was restored in 1931.

2) Wall-houses, which is to say, houses which formed part of the fortification.

3) Court, the central plaza of the city.

4) Those of you who have seen the canals in and around Amersfoort will have the same trouble as I do picturing this water streaming rapidly. My father explains, "You have not seen the current when they open the lock on Het Spui or the gates near the Koppelpoort. (There is one on each side of the poort.)

5) For those of you who aren't up on the finer points of Catholic faith, an indulgence is a remittance of penance due to be served in purgatory. Even when a sin is confessed and forgiven, it must still be atoned for by a suitable stretch of time in purgatory, before a person can go to heaven. (You can imagine discipline going to, well, hell if that were not so.) By earning indulgences, a person can shorten the time in purgatory.

6) Today it is just a little bag with crumbled wood. Another old wooden statue of Our Lady of Amersfoort stands in a little niche in the east wall of St. Francis X. Church.

7) My uncle Henk's mother-in-law was from the family Loeff, born in Baardwyk (now part of Waalwyk) in North Brabant.

8) Old Episcopalian