Schuilkerk
Encyclopedia
A clandestine church defined by historian Benjamin J. Kaplan
Benjamin J. Kaplan
Benjamin J. Kaplan is a historian and professor of Dutch history at University College London and the University of Amsterdam. He taught at University of Iowa.He is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow....

 as a "semi-clandestine church", is a house of worship used by religious minorities whose communal worship is tolerated by those of the majority faith on condition that it is discreet and not conducted in public spaces. Schuilkerken are commonly built inside houses or other buildings, and do not show a public façade to the street. They were an important advance in religious tolerance in the wake of the Reformation
Reformation
- Movements :* Protestant Reformation, an attempt by Martin Luther to reform the Roman Catholic Church that resulted in a schism, and grew into a wider movement...

, an era when worship services conducted by minority faiths were often banned and sometimes penalized by exile or execution.

History

According to historian Benjamin Kaplan, clandestine churches became common in Europe in the wake of the Reformation
Reformation
- Movements :* Protestant Reformation, an attempt by Martin Luther to reform the Roman Catholic Church that resulted in a schism, and grew into a wider movement...

 as a way for governments to permit a degree of religious toleration for minority Christian denominations and Jews. Both political and religious considerations frequently led governments to ban all worship not sanctioned by the state, and in many countries, members of minority religions worshiped together in total secrecy, risking punishment by the state. However, such a regime was frequently difficult to enforce, and as a result, while many jurisdictions permitted only one form of worship, authorities knowingly permitted members of minority faiths to worship privately. In others, the law permitted public worship by minority faiths, but only if it was more or less invisible to the general public.

The 1648 Treaty of Osnabruck, part of the Peace of Westphalia
Peace of Westphalia
The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October of 1648 in Osnabrück and Münster. These treaties ended the Thirty Years' War in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch Republic, with Spain formally recognizing the...

, specified three types of worship: “domestic devotion”, public religious services (“exercitium religionis publicum”), and private religious services (“exercitium religionis privatum”). It is into this last category that clandestine churches fall. These churches were characterized by group religious services carried out by clergy “in their own houses or in other houses designated for the purpose,” and not “in churches at set hours.” Kaplan writes that the pretense of clandestinity “enabled Europeans to accommodate dissent without confronting it directly, to tolerate knowingly what they could not bring themselves to accept fully.”

In a surviving Dutch document from 1691, the Regents of the City of Amsterdam, specified the terms under which a Roman Catholic church, called the Glabais, could be built by the Franciscans "to avoid giving any offense." The entrance must not be on the Jodenbreestraat
Jodenbreestraat
The Jodenbreestraat is a street in the centre of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The street runs from the Sint Antoniesluis sluice gates to the Mr. Visserplein traffic circle...

, but “behind” on a lesser thoroughfare, the Burgwal. There would be no parking of sleds on the Jodenbreestraat. There was to be no “waiting for another person” on the street after services. The priest was responsible for seeing that no beggars came to ask the worshipers for alms. Services were timed so that there would be no chance of Roman Catholics offending Protestants by meeting them in the streets on their way to Dutch Reformed churches. And, finally, the Catholics must not walk to church in groups, nor carry prayer books, rosaries, or "other offensive objects" in a manner that made them visible to Protestant eyes. Benjamin J. Kaplan
Benjamin J. Kaplan
Benjamin J. Kaplan is a historian and professor of Dutch history at University College London and the University of Amsterdam. He taught at University of Iowa.He is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow....

 regards these requirements as typical of those in effect across Europe wherever clandestine churches were permitted.

In 1701, the intendant of Alsace, Félix Le Pelletier de La Houssaye
Félix Le Pelletier de La Houssaye
Félix Le Pelletier de La Houssaye was Controller-General of Finances.While serving as 1701 the Intendant of Alsace, in 1701, Le Pelletier issued a ruling permitting Jewish worship in clandestine synagogues in response to a complaint brought by an abbe. It reads, "The worship which the Jews...

 ruled against a complaint brought by an abbe, writing that "The worship which the Jews established in Reichshoffen
Reichshoffen
Reichshoffen is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.-See also:* Battle of Worth, also known as the Battle of Reichshoffen*Communes of the Bas-Rhin department-References:*...

 is not as public as one would have you believe. There is no synagogue per se, only, by a custom long established in this province, when there are seven Jewish families in one locale, those who compose them assemble, without scandal, in a house of their sect for readings and prayers." A line was crossed when an actual building was erected as a prayer house, as the Jews of Biesheim
Biesheim
Biesheim is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.-References:*...

, Wintzenheim
Wintzenheim
Wintzenheim is a commune in the Haut-Rhin département in Alsace in north-eastern France.Its inhabitants are called Wintzenheimois.-Geography:Wintzenheim is a small village to the east of Colmar....

 and Hagenthal discovered when each community had a newly-built synagogue razed by the Conseil Souverain of Alsace in the 1720's.

Although early clandestine churches were makeshift spaces, by the 17th century some, usually Catholic, churches had constructed elaborately decorated baroque interiors. Artists who painted works commissioned by clandestine churches include Gerard van Honthorst
Gerard van Honthorst
Gerard van Honthorst , also known as Gerrit van Honthorst and in Italy as Gherardo delle Notti for his nighttime candlelit subjects, was a Dutch Golden Age painter from Utrecht.-Biography:...

, Abraham Bloemaert
Abraham Bloemaert
Abraham Bloemaert was a Dutch painter and printmaker in etching and engraving. He was one of the "Haarlem Mannerists" from about 1585, but in the new century altered his style to fit new Baroque trends...

, Jan Miense Molenaer
Jan Miense Molenaer
Jan Miense Molenaer , was a Dutch Golden Age genre painter whose style was a precursor to Jan Steen's work during Dutch Golden Age painting. He shared a studio with his wife, Judith Leyster, also a genre painter, as well as a portraitist and painter of still-life...

, Pieter de Grebber
Pieter de Grebber
Pieter Fransz de Grebber was a Dutch Golden Age painter.-Life:De Grebber was the oldest son of Frans Pietersz de Grebber , a painter and embroiderer in Haarlem, and the brother of the painters Maria and Albert. He learned to paint from his father and from Hendrick Goltzius...

, Claes Corneliszoon Moeyaert
Claes Corneliszoon Moeyaert
Claes Corneliszoon Moeyaert or Nicolaes Moyaert or Mooyaert was an authoritative Catholic Dutch painter. He followed Rembrandt in his use of red chalk....

 and Jan de Bray
Jan de Bray
Jan de Bray , was a Dutch Golden Age painter.-Biography:Jan de Bray was born in Haarlem. According to Houbraken he was the most famous pupil of his father, the architect and poet Salomon de Bray. Houbraken called Jan the "pearl in Haarlem's crown"...

.

In 1791, under the Patent of Toleration
Patent of toleration
The Patent of Toleration was an edict issued in 1781 by the Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II of Austria. The Patent extended religious freedom to non-Catholic Christians living in Habsburg lands, including Lutherans, Calvinists, and the Greek Orthodox. Specifically, these members of minority faiths...

, the Austrian Hapsburg Empire for the first time instituted limited legal toleration of minority faiths, permitting them to conduct "private religious exercises" in clandestine churches. Emperor Joseph II's
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor
Joseph II was Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790 and ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 to 1790. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I...

 Patent specified that these clandestine churches might not ring a bell or build bell towers or any public entrance on the street. Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

's Stadttempel
Stadttempel
The Stadttempel is the main synagogue of Vienna, Austria. It is located in the 1st District , at Seitenstettengasse 4.-History:...

, a synagogue built in 1825 with an extremely handsome interior, is an excellent surviving example. It is completely concealed in the interior of a block of residential buildings.

Types

Some are freestanding buildings constructed in rear courtyards. What they share is that they are not readily recognizable as a houses of worship by passersby. Such churches were built in large numbers during the time of the Dutch Republic
Dutch Republic
The Dutch Republic — officially known as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands , the Republic of the United Netherlands, or the Republic of the Seven United Provinces — was a republic in Europe existing from 1581 to 1795, preceding the Batavian Republic and ultimately...

 for use by Roman Catholics, Remonstrants, Lutherans and Mennonites. In cities schuilkerken were especially established in houses and warehouses, whereas in the countryside such churches generally had the appearance of a shed and so became known as Schuurkerken (barn churches). All clandestine churches of necessity lacked exterior markers that would identify them as churches, they had no bells, towers, steeples, crosses, icons or exterior architectural splendor.

Rural

St. Ninian's Church, Tynet
St. Ninian's Church, Tynet
St. Ninian's Church, Tynet is a historic Roman Catholic church clandestine church located at Tynet about 4 miles to the west of Buckie, Scotland in the Enzie region. Erected in 1755, it is the oldest surviving Roman Catholic church built in Scotland after the Reformation.-Architecture:St...

, Scotland, is a typical, rural clandestine church. Built in 1755, it resembles a long, low barn. It is a dramatic contrast with its replacement, St. Gregory's Church, Preshome
St. Gregory's Church, Preshome
St. Gregory's Church, Preshome is a Roman Catholic Church at Preshome near Buckie in north-east Scotland. It is protected as a category A listed building....

, Scotland, the first openly Catholic church to be built in Scotland after the Reformation, whose proud Italian Baroque facade with the date in Latin, "DEO 1788," announcing its Catholicism to the world.

Freestanding urban

Amsterdam's Vrijburg
Vrijburg
Vrijburg is an historic clandestine church concealed behind a row of houses fronting on the Keizersgracht, Amsterdam. It is situated in the center of the block, with houses on all four sides and no frontage on any public street....

 (1629) is a typical freestanding, urban clandestine church. It is built at the center of the block, completely surrounded by houses on all four sides, so that it neither fronts on, nor is visible from, any public street.

House churches

The church Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder
Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder
Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder is a 17th century canal house, house church, and museum in the city center of Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Catholic Church was built on the top three floors of the canal house during the 1660s...

 in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, currently a museum, is a notable example of a house church. A Jewish house synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...

 survives in Traenheim
Traenheim
Traenheim is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.A Jewish house church from 1723 survives. It is an upstairs room in a half-timbered house renovated for use as a place of public worship over the "vociferous" objections of the town's pastor but with the...

 in Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

. It is an upstairs room in a half-timbered house renovated for use as a place of public worship in 1723 over the "vociferous" objections of the town's pastor but with the permission of the government. The room still has Hebrew prayers on the walls.

Further reading

  • Kaplan, Benjamin J
    Benjamin J. Kaplan
    Benjamin J. Kaplan is a historian and professor of Dutch history at University College London and the University of Amsterdam. He taught at University of Iowa.He is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow....

    . "Fictions of Privacy: House Chapels and the Spatial Accommodation of Religious Dissent in Early Modern Europe." American Historical Review
    American Historical Review
    The American Historical Review is the official publication of the American Historical Association, established in 1895 "for the promotion of historical studies, the collection and preservation of historical documents and artifacts, and the dissemination of historical research." It targets readers...

    107 (2002): 1031-1064.
  • Clandestine Splendor: Paintings for the Catholic Church in the Dutch Republic, Xander van Eck, Waanders Publishers (2008)
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