Saint John Church

The Sint-Janskerk is a Gothic church in the center of the Dutch city of Maastricht. The Protestant Sint-Jan is situated next to the Roman Catholic Basilica of Saint Servatius on the Vrijthof, a unique sight in the Netherlands.The Church of Saint John was one of the four parish churches of Maastricht in the Middle Ages. The church was named after John the Baptist and was founded around 1200 by the Chapter of Saint Servatius to function as a baptismal and parish church for the parish of Saint Servatius. This relieved the load on the Saint Servatius Church and allowed it to function exclusively as a collegiate and pilgrimage church. On Easter and Pentecost eves, the canons of Saint Servatius went in procession to Saint John to consecrate the baptismal water. On that occasion, the church choir sang to the canons from the first tower transept of St. John's. The Sint-Janskerk was first mentioned in 1218. The current church dates from the 14th and early 15th centuries. In 1414 the Gothic baptistery was added. The original tower collapsed on June 8, 1366, after a violent storm. The current tower was completed in the second half of the fifteenth century with the construction of the roof lantern, after a long period of restoration.

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