Pilgrim Fathers Church
Encyclopedia
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
-Delfshaven
Delfshaven
Delfshaven is a borough of Rotterdam on the right bank of river Nieuwe Maas, in South Holland, the Netherlands. It was a separate municipality until 1886.The town of Delfshaven grew around the port of the city of Delft...
, in the Netherlands.
History
The history of the Old or Pilgrim Fathers' Church goes back as far as 1472, when the Roman Catholic church of St. Anthony was consecrated on this site. The oldest known
In 1608 a group of English religious dissenters fled to the Netherlands. They had left the Anglican church a few years before and had founded their own religious community.
After living in Leiden for eleven years, they decided to become Pilgrims and cross the wide waters to America, where they might worship God in their own way and still be Englishmen.
The great adventure started in Delfshaven
Delfshaven
Delfshaven is a borough of Rotterdam on the right bank of river Nieuwe Maas, in South Holland, the Netherlands. It was a separate municipality until 1886.The town of Delfshaven grew around the port of the city of Delft...
, on 21 July 1620. There a ship awaited them, the Speedwell
Speedwell (ship)
The Speedwell was a 60-ton ship, the smaller of the two ships intended to carry the Pilgrim Fathers to North America...
, that was bound for America. According to the chronicles the Pilgrim Fathers knelt down in prayer on the quay near the church, that was later to be named after them.
The most radical rebuilding took place in 1765. At this time the church was heightened considerably and was given its present facade with the bell-shaped gable. Much later, American visitors gave it its third name: Pilgrim Fathers' Church.
In the nineteenth century the building with the text 'Eben-Haëzer' in its gable, was erected behind the church. The Stichting Oude Hollandse Kerken (Foundation Old Churches in Holland) acquired the church in 1992. A large-scale restoration was completed in 1998.
Interior
The Old or Pilgrim Fathers' Church has a spacious and light interior. Arches, plastered white, divide the nave from the aisles. Commemorative panels, bearing the names of the vicars who served the community from 1574 onwards, adorn the otherwise bare walls.lectern
Lectern
A lectern is a reading desk with a slanted top, usually placed on a stand or affixed to some other form of support, on which documents or books are placed as support for reading aloud, as in a scripture reading, lecture, or sermon...
. As usual in Dutch Protestant churches, the pulpit stands within a rectangular enclosure. Here, the members of the church council sat during services and here, baptism was administered. The stained-glass windows in the choir represent the six days of Creation. It has a lovely 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...
.
The oldest bell, which was cast in 1464, is cracked and is now on display in the church.