Church on the Market Square
For much of recorded history religion played an outstanding role in the lives of people around the world. From the fertile lands along the Nile River in Egypt to the isolated craters and beaches of Easter Island, religion often guided the beliefs, actions, and welfare of diverse peoples. To an extent, religion still guides our customs, social norms, and behaviors in the twenty-first century.
Religion played a foundational role in the lives of our ancestors stretching back four centuries to their earliest recorded days in Winterswijk. At the center of the Dutch city, located on the Market Square where roads to each of the four surrounding townships meet (Meddo, Ratum, Woold, and Missed), the majestic Jacobskerk, or Jacobs Church, stands 187 feet tall.
The History of Jacobskerk
Jacobskerk’s Romanesque predecessor was built around 1200 at the site of a baptismal church dated nearly 400 years earlier. The quick math tells us that some sort of religious structure has stood continuously at the plot of present-day Jacobskerk since 800 A.D. — when Charlemagne was the Holy Roman Emperor and Vikings were attacking nearby European port cities.
The style of Jacobskerk gradually began changing around 1400 when the choir was replaced and the construction of the current three-aisled pseudobasilical ship was started. This design is noticeable in the image at right below.
Left: Dorpskerk (Village Church) Painting by Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Painted 1898 | Right: View of the Dutch Reformed Church, 1983; Courtesy the Dutch National Office for Cultural Heritage
Between 1507 and 1550 the tower was built, which has since been struck by lightning and reconstructed twice in 1715 and 1888. Inside the building an organ is situated just beyond the altar and a grand chandelier hangs from the high ceiling, a donation by the Weavers Guild in 1788. In more ways than one, Jacobskerk represents the rich history and undying spirit of Winterswijk’s faithful laborers for much of the last millennium.
The City of Winterswijk and Friends of the Jacobskerk Foundation have invested significantly in maintaining the church’s beauty and delicateness, completing an extensive renovation of the structure in the early 1970s.
Loomans Ancestors and Jacobskerk
Jan Willem Lomans’ baptism in 1793 is recorded at Jacobskerk, indicating the church’s role in the lives of Loomans ancestors. It seems likely that for centuries even before Jan Willem’s birth Jacobskerk was the family’s primary place of workshop—commuting the three miles each week to the heart of Winterswijk for Sunday service.
Much of what they saw two centuries ago still exists—the chandelier, the pseudobasilica structure of the building, and the organ. Dutch hymnals sung today echoed through the sanctuary of Jacobskerk 600 years ago, with spoken scripture based on an unchanged written word preached in sermons of past and present.
For many families who tended farms in and around Winterswijk in the late 1700s and throughout history, the church served as an escape from the harsh realities of their existence. Jan Willem and his family labored every day on the homestead with little reward, but no matter how troublesome the growth of their crops became or the recent loss of a child, Sundays always represented an opportunity to break free and praise God in the church on the Market Square.