The Grote Kerk or St.-Bavokerk is a Protestant church and former Catholic cathedral located on the central market square in the Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 city of Haarlem

Haarlem

Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...

. Another Haarlem church called the Cathedral of Saint Bavo

Cathedral of Saint Bavo

The Cathedral of Saint Bavo is a religious building in Haarlem, the Netherlands, built by the Catholics from 1895 to 1930 to replace the former Waterstaatskerk St. Joseph. That church was itself a replacement for the Sint-Bavokerk, that had been converted to Protestantism from Catholicism in 1578...

 now serves as the main cathedral for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Haarlem-Amsterdam.

History

This church is an important landmark for the city of Haarlem and has dominated the city skyline for centuries. It is built in the Gothic

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

 style of architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

, and it became the main church of Haarlem after renovations in the 15th century made it significantly larger than the Janskerk (Haarlem)

Janskerk (Haarlem)

The Janskerk or St. John's Church is a former church in the Dutch city of Haarlem. Today it houses the North Holland Archives .-History:...

. The term "Catholic" was never really associated with this church, since it was only consecrated

Consecration

Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service, usually religious. The word "consecration" literally means "to associate with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different groups...

 as a cathedral

Cathedral

A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop...

 in 1559, which was already in the middle of the period known as the Protestant Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

. The church was confiscated only 19 years later during the Haarlemse noon in 1578, when it was converted to Protestantism

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

. It was dedicated to Saint Bavo

Saint Bavo

Saint Bavo of Ghent is a Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox saint.-Life:Bavo was born near Liège, Belgium, to a Frankish noble family that gave him the name Allowin...

 at some time before 1500, though there exists a curious painting in the collection of the Catholic Cathedral of St. Bavo illustrating the miracle of St. Bavo saving Haarlem from the Kennemers

Kennemerland

Kennemerland is a region in the Netherlands, near the coast in the province of North Holland. In includes the sand dunes north of the North Sea Canal, as well as the dunes of Zuid-Kennemerland National Park.-History:...

 in a scene from the 13th century. This painting was painted a century after the Catholics were banned from "their" church, and may have been a commemorative painting referring to the defense of the Church and the Catholic faith as well as the defense of the city.

Christianity in Haarlem

Haarlem has had a Christian parish church since the 9th century. This first church was a "daughter church" of Velsen

Velsen

Velsen is a municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is located on both sides of the North Sea Canal.On the north side of the North Sea Canal, in IJmuiden, there is a major steel plant, Corus Strip Products IJmuiden, formerly known as Koninklijke Hoogovens...

, which itself was founded in 695 by St. Willibrord. This early first church was a wooden church on the same site of the current Sint-Bavokerk. Extensions and expansions over the centuries led to its formal consecration in 1559 when the first bishop Nicolaas van Nieuwland

Nicolaas van Nieuwland

Nicolaas van Nieuwland was bishop of Haarlem and abbot of Egmond Abbey from 1562 to 1569.-Biography:Van Nieuwland became bishop when he was still young. He became titular bishop of Hebron in 1541...

 was appointed. Only 19 years later, after the Spanish occupation ended (they won the Siege of Haarlem

Siege of Haarlem

The siege of Haarlem was an episode of the Eighty Years' War. From December 11, 1572 to July 13, 1573 an army of Philip II of Spain laid bloody siege to the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands, whose loyalties had begun wavering during the previous summer...

) and Haarlem reverted to the Protestant House of Orange

William the Silent

William I, Prince of Orange , also widely known as William the Silent , or simply William of Orange , was the main leader of the Dutch revolt against the Spanish that set off the Eighty Years' War and resulted in the formal independence of the United Provinces in 1648. He was born in the House of...

, the church was confiscated during the episode known as the Haarlemse noon and converted to Protestantism as part of the Protestant Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

.

At this time most of the art and silver artefacts were also seized and what was not sold or destroyed has survived in the Haarlem municipal collection, which is now in the collection of the Frans Hals Museum

Frans Hals Museum

The Frans Hals Museum is a hofje and municipal museum in Haarlem, Netherlands. The museum was founded in 1862 in the newly renovated former cloister located in the back of the Haarlem city hall known as the Prinsenhof...

. The Haarlem Catholics took what they could carry with them and went underground, meeting thereafter in various schuilkerk

Schuilkerk

A clandestine church , defined by historian Benjamin J. Kaplan 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...

en, the most prominent ones known as the St. Franciscus statie and the St. Josephs statie. Eventually, the St. Josephstatie built a new church across from the Janskerk called the St. Josephkerk, and this church, after growing and becoming a cathedral again, built a new cathedral on the Leidsevaart in the 19th century. Since the building of this new Cathedral of St. Bavo, there has been lots of confusion about the name of the Bavochurch, since as a Protestant church it is not even dedicated to Saint Bavo. For this reason it is officially called Grote Kerk, which just means "High Church".

Fires

On May 22, 1801 there was a fire caused when lightning struck the tower. A disaster was prevented by Martijn Hendrik Kretschman, the guard of the tower, and three other men. In 1839, one of those men, Jan Drost, committed suicide in the tower after he was fired (he worked for the church). He had tried to set fire to the organ by throwing hot coals on top of it, but he missed and another disaster was prevented.

In the renovation of the 1930s an automatic sprinkler system was installed in the tower, that could extinguish a fire up to an elevation in the tower of 70 meters.

Exterior

Though the exterior of the church seems timeless, it changed twice in the past 500 years; once when all statuary was removed from the outer niches during the Haarlemse Noon, and the second time in the late 19th century when a "more Gothic look" was given to the church by adding some fake ramparts to the roof edge. This can be seen easily when comparing pictures made before and afterwards.

Interior

The interior of the church has also changed little over the years, though it the inner chapels suffered greatly during the Beeldenstorm

Beeldenstorm

Beeldenstorm in Dutch, roughly translatable to "statue storm", or Bildersturm in German , also the Iconoclastic Fury, is a term used for outbreaks of destruction of religious images that occurred in Europe in the 16th century...

, and many stained-glass windows have been lost to neglect. Fortunately, the interior has been painted many times by local painters, most notably by Pieter Jansz Saenredam

Pieter Jansz Saenredam

Pieter Jansz. Saenredam was a painter of the Dutch Golden Age, known for his distinctive paintings of whitewashed church interiors.-Biography:...

 and the Berckheyde brothers. Based on these paintings, work has been done to reconstruct the interior so various items such as rouwborden or "mourning shields" hang again today in their "proper" place.

Stained glass windows

The stained glass windows of the Bavo have suffered through the years from neglect. It is hard to imagine that Haarlem was an important center for stained glass art in the 16th century, since so little evidence of it still exists in Haarlem. After the Reformation, Haarlem promoted the story of the Wapenvermeerdering and produced many windows with this central story, which it presented as a gift to other churches and town halls. Today the original Haarlem gift by Willem Thibaut

Willem Thibaut

Willem Thibaut, Tybaut, or Tibout , was a Dutch Golden Age painter.-Biography:According to the RKD he lived and worked in Haarlem, but made the cartoons for the two stained-glass windows in the Janskerk in 1570....

 still hangs in the Janskerk (Gouda)

Janskerk (Gouda)

The Sint Janskerk in Gouda, the Netherlands, is a large Gothic church, known especially for its stained glass windows, for which it has been placed on the UNESCO list of Dutch monuments.-History:...

 as designed. That window gives an impression of the type of window that once hung in the Western wall. When the famous Muller organ was installed, the glass on the west side of the church (now only known to us from the painting by the local painter Job Berckheyde) with the Wapenvermeerdering, was dismantled and bricked up. The sketches for this glass have survived and are in the possession of the Rijksmuseum

Rijksmuseum

The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam or simply Rijksmuseum is a Dutch national museum in Amsterdam, located on the Museumplein. The museum is dedicated to arts, crafts, and history. It has a large collection of paintings from the Dutch Golden Age and a substantial collection of Asian art...

 in Amsterdam and were drawn by Barend van Orley.

In the church today, the lack of historic colorful windows has been made up for by installing windows from other, demolished or defunct churches, while modern artists have created new themes. A beautiful large blue window hanging on the northern side greets the visitor who enters through the double doors on the Groenmarkt. This window was made to personify peace and harmony, and was made by the local glass artist Michel van Overbeeke, who received a local prize of culture for this in 2009 (De Olifant).

Organ

The organ

Pipe organ

The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...

 of the Sint-Bavo church (the Christiaan Müller organ) is one of the world's great organs. It was built by Christian Müller and Jan van Logteren, from Amsterdam, between 1735 and 1738; upon completion it was the largest organ in the world with 60 voices and 32-feet pedal-towers. In Moby-Dick

Moby-Dick

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, was written by American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. It is considered by some to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod,...

 (1851), Herman Melville

Herman Melville

Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....

 describes the inside of a whale's mouth:

"Seeing all these colonnades of bone so methodically ranged about, would you not think you were inside of the great Haarlem organ, and gazing upon its thousand pipes?"

Many famous people used this organ, including Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

, Händel

George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

 and the 10-year old Mozart who played it in 1766. The organ was modified a number of times in the 19th and 20th century. These changes were undone in the renovation between 1959 and 1961. Between 1987 and 2000 work was performed on the voicing of the organ. Today concerts are regularly held in the church, and all through the year special opening times are organized so the public can walk in free of charge to listen to this famous organ in action.

A local story goes to say that the bass of the organ was so low, the mortar in between the brimstones started to brittle to nothing.

Graves

Until 1831 graves were allowed in the church, and many illustrious Haarlemmers through the centuries are buried there. Often people were buried under family gravestones, and the family shields of illustrious families are mounted on diamond shaped "plaques" hanging on the walls. Other illustrious Haarlemmers were buried in individual graves such as the rich Pieter Teyler van der Hulst

Pieter Teyler van der Hulst

Pieter Teyler van der Hulst was a wealthy Dutch Mennonite merchant, who died childless, leaving a legacy of two million florins to the pursuit of religion, arts and science in his hometown, that led to the formation of Teyler's Museum. This was not the value of his entire estate...

 and Willem van Heythuisen. The painters Maarten van Heemskerck (as a former church koster, he is buried in the kerstkapel), Frans Hals

Frans Hals

Frans Hals was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He is notable for his loose painterly brushwork, and helped introduce this lively style of painting into Dutch art. Hals was also instrumental in the evolution of 17th century group portraiture.-Biography:Hals was born in 1580 or 1581, in Antwerp...

 (who was buried in his first wife's grandfather's grave, Nicolaes Ghyblant, but who received his own gravestone in 1962), Saenredam himself (in the South choir way near the entrance), and Jacob van Ruysdael and Salomon van Ruysdael. The two circus curiosities, the giant Daniel Cajanus

Daniel Cajanus

Daniel Mynheer Cajanus was a Finnish giant. He made his living by exhibiting himself for money; he appeared in many European countries and attracted the interest of scientists and laypeople, including royalty...

 with his midget friend Jan Paap, are buriied there. The last burial there was for Willem Bilderdijk

Willem Bilderdijk

Willem Bilderdijk , Dutch poet, the son of an Amsterdam physician. When he was six years old an accident to his foot incapacitated him for ten years, and he developed habits of continuous and concentrated study...

.

A local story is that under stone number 7 near the choir gate, there is a grave of a man who used to hit his mother as a child. After a time his hand started growing above his grave, and a copper plate had to be installed on the grave to stop the hand from growing.

Bells

According to the local legend known as the Wapenvermeerdering, or "Legend of the Haarlem shield", the two upper bells in the tower were taken from Damiette (Damiate in Dutch) during the Fifth Crusade

Fifth Crusade

The Fifth Crusade was an attempt to reacquire Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering the powerful Ayyubid state in Egypt....

 by Haarlem knights and were placed in the tower. In reality, they were a gift by Johannes Dircks, a bell-maker from Aalst

Aalst, Belgium

Aalst is a city and municipality on the Dender River, 19 miles northwest from Brussels. It is located in the Flemish province of East Flanders in the Denderstreek. The municipality comprises the city of Aalst itself and the villages of Baardegem, Erembodegem, Gijzegem, Herdersem, Hofstade,...

 to Nicolaas van Nieuwland

Nicolaas van Nieuwland

Nicolaas van Nieuwland was bishop of Haarlem and abbot of Egmond Abbey from 1562 to 1569.-Biography:Van Nieuwland became bishop when he was still young. He became titular bishop of Hebron in 1541...

, the bishop of Haarlem, in 1562. Since then the two bells were rung every evening between 21:00 and 21:30 o'clock, to signal the closing of the city gates for the night. In 1732 the bells were restored, and two new upper bells were installed, created by Jan Albert de Grave. Since Haarlem was no longer a vesting stad or walled city, the tradition of the bells continued, to commemorate the conquest of Damiette on August 25, 1219.

The city carillon

Carillon

A carillon is a musical instrument that is typically housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are played serially to play a melody, or sounded together to play a chord...

is in the bell tower, and the bell that rings the hour is called the Roelant, and was made in 1503 by the klokkengieter or bell maker, Gerrit van Wou of Kampen. During the summer season from May–October, the bells of the whole carillon are rung on Tuesday evenings, often by guest carillon players.
In 1932 the clock on the tower was upgraded with electrical lights.

External links

• http://www.bavo.nl/bladen/orgelengels.php - More information on the Müller Organ.