St. John's Beheading Church

The idyllically situated St. John Beheading Church dates back to the 14th-15th centuries and was rebuilt several times thereafter. The current of the Scheldt caused subsidence in the church. The screeching operations during the Wars of Religion (3) were also devastating. It was not until 1681 that the church was fully restored and given a new patron saint. Before that, the patron saint was Saint Goorik, a saint who was especially adept at freeing prisoners. This saint was chosen for Schellebelle because of the legend (12) around the origin of the church.

Drapstraat 9260 Schellebelle (Wichelen)

Iconoclasm and the Wars of Religion (3)
The Wars of Religion during the second half of the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries are also known as the Eighty Years' War. It was a war in which the population was directly opposed to the Catholic rulers. They were thoroughly fed up with the abuses, not only of the Church but of all traditional rulers. They pinned their hopes on Protestantism, which denounced misconduct within the Church. The anger came to a head with the Iconoclasm that swept through the Netherlands in 1566. The churches were stormed and a huge number of church treasures were lost. Eventually the Protestants moved north and the Netherlands were split into two areas, the northern Protestant Netherlands, the present-day Netherlands and the southern Catholic Netherlands, present-day Belgium.

Legend around the church of Schellebelle (12)
Knight Hugo Papejans De Morchoven, lord of the free lordship of Ertbrugge, left for the Crusades as a convinced Christian. He was captured by Saracen pirates. After years of imprisonment, he solemnly promised God to build a church on the site where he would see his beloved Schellebelle again for the first time. Thereupon he was freed from his shackles by an angel, carried by the air, and laid down at home on the banks of the Scheldt, where he fulfilled his promise.

Stichting Open Kerken