 Noordwijk (ZH): reformed church or St. Jeroen  With a church this size it's easy to forget that
Noordwijk is only a village, not a town. If it wasn't for a local
saint, St. Jeroen, Noordwijk would probably never have had such a big
and important church.This Jeroen (also known as Jeron, Iero, Jero and Hiëron) was a nobleman of Scottish descent, born in ca. 800, who became a missionary among the pagan people of the place that is now known as Noordwijk and was murdered there by Vikings in 856 because he refused to denounce his faith. The martyr became a saint, and Noordwijk officially became a place of pilgrimage in 1429. The oldest part of the church is the tower, which dates from the 13th century, others say the 12th, and is decorated with niches in a transitional style between Romanesque and Gothicism. Its walls are two metres thick. The current church was built after 1450, to replace the previous church of 1311 which had been destroyed by fire. It's a three-aisled cruciform pseudo-basilica in Gothic style. The side-aisles are quite narrower in comparision with the nave. Wooden barrel-vaults cover the nave. The Reformation left the church undamaged. However, it was conficated by the protestants at the end of the 16th century, and the pilgrimages were forbidden. The tradition was restored in 1892 by pope Leo XIII, and a new catholic church was built elsewhere in the village. |
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