Wednesday, 31-July-2024
The Church of Saint John the Baptist at the Béguinage… or, as it’s known now, the House of Compassion, sat a stone’s throw from my rental. It’s a pretty church, if looking a bit old and in need of a pressure washing, and it (along with the square around it) made for a very excellent landmark for my adventures.
Wednesday evening, after my adventures in the city, I realized that I hadn’t actually walked inside the Church of St. John the Baptist at the Béguinage. I’d walked past it quite a few times, but hadn’t seen the door open previously… or if I had seen it, I hadn’t quite picked up on it and walked in.
Today, I headed inside.
I was expecting your standard-issue church – some stained glass, a fancy organ, maybe some statues and paintings. A gilded alter, you know the drill.
I didn’t see what I was expecting.
I mean, okay. I did find all of that. I didn’t notice any of it, at first, though – instead having my attention captured by what had been made of the church.
It was an art exhibit.
It was stories of refugees, of asylum seekers, and of the homeless population.
It was a meeting place, with a long table with dozens of chairs in the center, seemingly waiting for people to come in and have a communal meal.
The whole interior had been reworked – and as I wandered, I ran into a docent who told me the whole story: I short, the church had become abandoned during COVID. Belgium has quite a few churches, and a dwindling religious population it seems, and so when the previous pastor retired… this massive stone edifice that would have been the cornerstone of any religious group in the United States was simply left empty. They tried to get a new pastor, but as none were available the congregation simply moved on, and left the building locked up.
Squatters moved in – but instead of defacing or damaging the building, they turned it into a home for asylum seekers and refugees abandoned by the system. The previous congregation slowly came back, helping them maintain the building, and the church turned from a place of worship into a place of survival… and then, when the asylum seekers and refugees found more permanent housing, it was transformed again into a memorial to their struggle and the struggle of so many like them.
I adore this.
I can’t say how much I adore this idea – instead of huge cathedrals laying unused, as a gilded monument to the power that religion used to hold, they’re turned into places to help those in need. I spoke at length with the docent, learning about how the whole process went, and got his contact information so that I could reach out once I finished settling into Ireland.
It really was an incredibly moving experience – all the more so because it was unexpected and unplanned. Absolutely worth stopping in.
