Cathedral of Our Lady (Antwerp)

The Cathedral of Our Lady (Dutch: Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal) is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Antwerp, Belgium. Today's seat of the Diocese of Antwerp started in 1352 and, although the first stage of construction was ended in 1521, has never been fully completed. It was constructed in the Gothic style by architects Jan and Pieter Appelmans. It contains a number of significant works by the Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens, as well as paintings by artists such as Otto van Veen, Jacob de Backer and Marten de Vos. The cathedral is the largest Gothic church in Belgium, with its tower rising 123 meters (404 ft) over the city. The belfry of the cathedral is included in the Belfries of Belgium and France entry in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The first Christian missionaries arrived in the 7th century. The first parish church dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul was constructed in the current Sint Michielsstraat. After the Viking raids in 836, the church was damaged and restored, and subsequently dedicated to Saint Michael. In the 10th century, a group of twelve secular canons were connected to this church. They would dedicate all of their time to the Liturgy of the Hours, and mainly opposed the beliefs of the established Roman Catholic Church. Upon hearing of their dissident behavior, the bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cambrai (to which Antwerp belonged at the time) then sent Norbert of Xanten to discipline them. In 1124, Norbert of Xanten convinced four of the secular canons to start a norbertine abbey and thus the parish church became a monastery church, known as St. Michael's Abbey. The eight other secular canons preferred to keep their freedom and moved to a different location, a chapel dedicated to Our Lady, the Virgin Mary. This chapel became Antwerp's new parish church, and was located between the Saint Michael residential area, and an older settlement around the area of Het Steen.

Becoming more popular, the chapel was demolished and replaced by a much bigger Romanesque church. The three-aisled nave corresponded in width to the cathedral's current central aisle, the inner and partly the middle aisles. The cloverleaf-shaped eastern section with a full aisle had a width of no less than 42 m. In 1294, the church got a novum opus extension, indicating the first signs of Gothic architecture. In 1352, construction was begun on a new Our Lady's church which would become the largest Gothic church in Belgium. In the beginning, it was to be provided with two towers of equal height. In 1521, after nearly 170 years, the new church of Our Lady was ready. The south tower reached only as far as the third-string course.

During the night of 5–6 October 1533, the new church caught fire. The Antwerp mayor Lancelot II of Ursel is credited with playing a major part in the salvation of the church. Through his active help and coordination, the cathedral is said to have been saved from total ruin. Nevertheless, 57 altars had not been saved and went up in flames. Lancelot suffered serious injuries but survived the ordeal according to the letters of the Italian chronicler Francesco Guicciardini. The completion of the second tower was delayed due to the fire and was ultimately abandoned. The church was made the cathedral of the bishopric of Antwerp in 1559. It lost this title in 1801 during the period of French occupation of Belgium by the promulgation of the Concordat of 1801. It was made a cathedral again in 1961. During the Iconoclasm of 20 August 1566 (part of the Beeldenstorm at the start of the Eighty Years' War), Protestants destroyed a large part of the cathedral's interior. The eye-witness Richard Clough, a Welsh Protestant merchant then in Antwerp, wrote that the cathedral: "looked like a hell, with above 10,000 to

Church data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).