Saint Andrew's Church

This church building is the parish church of the Sint-Andrieskwartier or parish of misery. At the beginning of the 16th century, the Augustinian fathers built a monastery on this site. The monastery chapel was quickly expanded into a real church and consecrated as a parish church in 1529. After the Iconoclastic Fury and the Calvinist policy, by 1585, when the city came back under Catholic control, nothing was left of late Gothic and Renaissance artworks. Decoration, furniture, and upholstery of this Gothic church largely date from the Baroque period. Many artworks were created by artists who lived in the parish. The Sint-Andries Church and its furnishings came through the period of French Revolutionary rule almost unscathed. After the French Revolution, the church was further adorned in the Baroque style. In the first phase with artworks from old monasteries, in the second phase, artists were commissioned. They remained faithful to that Baroque style until well into the 19th century. Hendrik Conscience, the man who taught his people to read, was baptized in the Sint-Andries Church.

padre jeannot