Sacred Residue

Religious Matters, 2018

The widespread reuse of church buildings marks one of the major changes in the visible presence of religion in the Netherlands. The estimated rate by which church buildings are closing down in this country varies between two to as much as four churches a week. 1 Some are demolished, but most of these buildings are preserved and converted for such uses as flats, theatres or restaurants (among many other purposes) or they are acquired by other religious groups, regularly Christian communities with a migration background and occasionally Muslims. These transformation processes evoke vivid public debates about proper and improper ways of reusing church buildings and about how to best safeguard this Christian material culture, now commonly framed as 'cultural heritage'. These developments guided my decision to focus on the abandonment and repurposing of church buildings when I started my postdoctoral research in the HERA project Iconic Religion in 2014. This project, a cooperation between the universities of Bochum,

European History Quarterly

In the Dutch Republic, the Reformed Church enjoyed the exclusive religious use of church buildings. Formerly, these churches had belonged to Catholics, who were forced to establish their own (semi-clandestine) places of worship known as schuilkerken or huiskerken. As such, Reformed Protestant and Catholics each had their own religious infrastructure and competing sacred spaces. Employing a comparative perspective and a conceptual distinction between churches as legal, sacred and social spaces, this article studies the myriad of relationships between Catholics, their former (parish) churches, and their schuilkerken. It argues that clandestine Catholic churches were never able to replace parish churches completely since the latter continued to be used by Dutch Catholics to exercise legal rights, express and forge social hierarchies, and at times even to practise their faith. While the existence of competing sacred spaces could cause confessional strife and signifies a degree of segreg...

The Church Building as a Sacred Place: Beauty, Transcendence, and the Eternal, 2012

How can we recover the sense of the sacred in our temples and shrines? We seem to have lost the ability to make new buildings which exude that ineffable sense of the “sacred” which can be rightly called the presence of the Almighty. Why is it that few of our churches built in recent decades intimate that the church building itself and the celebrations taking place within it are sacred?

Material Culture Review/Revue de la culture …, 1989

La culture matérielle propre à trois congrégations catholiques ukrainiennes d'Edmonton, en Alberta, reflète des courants de vie paroissiale distincts mais apparentés. L'architecture, l'aménagement intérieur et l'iconographie ont subi des variantes qui soulignent l'importance de l'histoire et de l'évolution du symbolisme culturel, de l'imagination humaine et des traditions.

Paper: Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology, 2022

Styles of churches through the centuries reflect that particular culture’s artistic skills, available materials, and its theological expression of Christ manifesting himself in the world. Roman, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque styles of architecture all express the ecclesiastical piety of Christians from that time and place. A particularly “Catholic architecture” does not exist per se since the Church as its transcendent reality is not confined to any particular time and place. Church architecture’s departure in the last several decades from providing witness to the sacred is rooted in a post-Enlightenment materialist, reductionist, socialistic anthropology. This philosophical spirit was marked by a general turn toward the subjective–toward a focus on the “inner man” and the respective interpretations of his place within the cosmic order through a hermeneutic that apodictically repudiated the Gospel’s supernatural elements. This embrace of nihilism can be overcome by an architectural return to a consciousness of what Heidegger called a sense of dwelling.

The future of churches: from a European comparison to a proposed “decalogue” for the reuse of catholic places of worship, 2023

The phenomenon of the abandonment and the reuse of places of worship is increasing everywhere in Western European countries. Due to secularization, the decline and the movement of the population, these assets are less and less used. The exact number of properties involved is not known, but significant numbers can be expected, if it is true that there are an estimated 600,000 existing houses of worship in Europe. The aim of the contribution is to verify, taking as examples three states with a Catholic tradition, namely Belgium, France, and Italy, what the different approaches to the phenomenon are, taking into account the different systems of relations between States and religious denominations and the legal regimes of places of worship, so as to be able to propose new legal solutions. The methodology consisted in an examination of the different legislations existing in Belgium, France and Italy, concerning buildings of worship and the protection and enhancement of cultural heritage. As an indepth focus, the research was limited to Catholic churches and, as far as Italy is concerned, a systematic study of the cases of decommissioning that occurred in the diocese of Turin between 1978 and 2019 was carried out. Despite the diversity of ownership – public in Belgium and France, tendentially private in Italy – some common elements emerge: the importance of the community participation in decisions on new uses, the possibility of mixed uses for worship and secular activities, and the valorisation of the cultural aspects of these assets. The research leads me to formulate a decalogue, containing elements that should be considered, before proceeding to the canonical reduction to profane uses and following reuse of churches, involving community participation, agreement between ecclesiastical and civil authorities and the pursuit of a systemic approach.

Journal of Christian Science, 2013

This article aims to define the relationship between church building design and liturgical space. Since various Christian denominations are experiencing fundamental change in liturgy and expression of their faith, the buildings that house these institutions necessarily have to reflect this. In the city of Bloemfontein, this is also evident. The correlation between the liturgical needs of the different denominations, the changes in these needs and in the space itself, is investigated. The various mainstream church buildings in Bloemfontein are compared in terms of original space and changed liturgical space. Restructuring has taken place in the services of specific congregations, especially in the Dutch Reformed Church. This has led to the most significant changes in liturgy and hence in liturgical space in the buildings of this denomination. This paper describes the extent of these changes in the space, the impact of the original design on the level of change (if any) and the result this has on the original design. Case studies are used to illustrate these changes in depth.

2018

Holy Food Market is a food court which opened last year in the former church of St Bernard in Ghent, Belgium. An enormously successful concept attracting many visitors, this reactivation has reconnected a long abandoned building with the public. A renovation has brought back the church to a former glory and the new function will secure funds for future maintenance. The sacred character of this church, however, has been changed dramatically. This paper wants to explore recent developments in reuse of historic churches in Ghent, ancient capital of Flanders. Property developers and others are attracted by the unique character, space and location many historic churches in towns and cities have. Authentic details give commercial spaces such as bookshops, restaurants, bars and furniture stores a unique character. Original fittings and fixtures are sacrificed to reduce the religious atmosphere. The material fabric may be preserved, the sacred character of the building is transformed. Extended or new use as a venue for cultural events such as concerts or exhibitions is an option to retain much more of the original interior. In today's multicultural society other denominations reuse a church as their place of worship.

XXXVIIè Curset 'Patrimoni Sacre : permanent innovació'

It is difficult to talk about the Italian religious heritage that, once abandoned, has been reused, for there would be to talk of a number of buildings so huge that have not yet been determined. It is otherwise possible to talk about this theme observing singular and pregnant examples. The one chosen for this paper is that of the churches of Pavia, a town in the north of Italy, near Milan, for centuries and still now home of a prestigious University that has influenced its urban development. Inside the old wall perimeter of the city, there are more than twenty deconsecrated churches belonging to different historical and architectural periods. The presence of these numerous huge and empty “containers” with a very high symbolic and cultural value represents a problem, but also a resource. A firstly historical premise allows to comprehend the different processes of dismission that have affected this heritage, and basically the reasons of the present day situation. With an urban scale approach, we can investigate the context that has decisively affected the destiny of these buildings. By observing the conversion of old churches we can speculate on a certain number of aspects: how the conversions were managed; which policies were followed; how culture influenced concrete choices; who (which institution) suggested the restoration; what theories guided it; to what extent did the economic interests and search for spaces prevail over the preservation ideals. The architectural outcomes found in this wide palimpsest are varied, especially due to the financial availability of new owners. There appears to be, in most cases, a certain awareness and conservative planning will respectful of what already exists. At the same time, there are several instances of churches that are neglected, reduced to residential or incompatible uses, and faced with serious problems not only ethical but also cultural. This paper will show how the urban context and its peculiarities (in this case, prominently, the presence of the university) offers a fertile ground for a correct and compatible reuse of places of worship.