Church of Vlezenbeek

Parish church of Our Lady

An oriented, three-nave church with a heterogeneous appearance as a result of a long construction history with various, intensive building campaigns; the oldest parts date back to the fourteenth-fifteenth century. The previously surrounding cemetery, now still partially hedged and walled, was closed in 1956, completely cleared in 1969, and replaced by green landscaping with, northwest of the church, the monument for the fallen in the form of an obelisk made of blue hardstone. The church was protected as a monument by Royal Decree of September 13, 1976. Originally, Vlezenbeek was ecclesiastically dependent on the mother parish of Sint-Pieters-Leeuw. In 1079, the then bishop of Cambrai, Gerard II, donated the altar of the Sint-Pieterskerk along with that of Vlezenbeek to the abbey of the Holy Grave of Cambrai. In 1305, Vlezenbeek detached itself from the mother parish and developed into an independent parish in the diocese of Cambrai. From 1559, the parish fell under the archdiocese of Mechelen. C. Van Gestel cites 1350 as the year of separation, a year that, according to him, is also mentioned in the "Specificatie oft Pertinente Beschrijvinghe der Baenderye, Heerlyckheydt ende Kasteel van Gaesbeek" (Brussels, 1654). The exact year of the establishment of the current parish church is not known; it presumably occurred during the fourteenth century, certainly before 1418, as evidenced by a deed from that year in which the then Duke of Brabant, Jan IV, granted permission to hold a fundraising for the completion of the church. It presumably replaced an older chapel in honor of Our Lady built near a miraculous spring, the so-called "Merselborre". A. Van Mieghem refers to a Romanesque church in local building materials, where a miraculous statue of Our Lady was venerated. During the religious troubles, this statue along with the church archive was destroyed.

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