Saint Macarius Chapel

Chapel on the Meirhoek district at the corner of Termstraat no. 1 with a field road called Helschootdreef. Formerly located on a bend of the Laarne-Wetteren road or the Wetterstraat and on the street corner with Termstraat. This place was also known as Kromme Schuur after the disappeared farm, which stood opposite the chapel. In the early 1970s, when the street curve formed by Wegleidingstraat and Meirhoekstraat was straightened, the plots and the course of the street were adjusted.
As a result, the road chapel has since stood at the beginning of the Termstraat, now in the front garden of a recent house. As to the exact time when the chapel was built here and to its origin, which is undoubtedly ancient, the available information is inconclusive. The veneration of Saint Macarius in Laarne is very old. Mentioned as patron saint of the parish as early as 1120. In 1456 there is already mention of the existence of the brotherhood or brotherhood of Saint Macarius in Laarne, but the initial foundation may be even older. The brotherhood was re-established in 1621 and in 1790 after a temporary abolition. The St. Macarius Church of Laarne acquired a relic of the saint in 1611. The annual St. Macarius procession, a procession that goes out on Whit Monday, also bears witness to an old St. Macarius veneration in Laarne. The procession is already mentioned in church accounts of 1574-76. The route of the ommegang was shortened in 1614; there is mention of a chapel that was visited on the Meirhoek. Epidemics of plague in the 17th century and cholera in the first half of the 19th century revived the worship of Macarius; The temporarily abolished Ommegang was then resumed. The Ommegang in Laarne has continued to exist to this day. The chapel of Saint Macarius on the Termstraat is a regular stop in this procession. During the annual procession, the chapel is decorated with flags and a carpet of flowers by the owners, according to popular tradition. Roadside chapel on the basis of a number of building features to date from the middle of the 18th or second half of the 18th century. In a document of 1761 there is mention of a newly built chapel in which there is a statue of Saint Macarius that previously hung on a lime tree, but this information cannot be related with complete certainty to the chapel of the Termstraat. Due to its location at the beginning of the Helschootdreef, the chapel may be associated with a site with moats of which the oldest known sources date from the second half of the 18th century; after all, the Helschootdreef was the access lane to a former "house of plaisance" or pleasure property. Other indications of a relationship between the two are not known for the time being. According to the land registry archives, the plot on which the Sint-Macarius chapel stands, with the Helschootdreef as an operating road, belonged at least since the beginning of the 19th century to the agricultural area adjacent to a former farm on the Wegleidingstraat and not to the Helschoothoeve on the aforementioned site with moats. Furthermore, the years 1598-1914 have been added to the doorlight of the current chapel. These refer to the artfully chiseled copper plate with the date 1598 depicting the crucified Christ, which was removed by the owners in 1914 as a precaution against confiscation by the German occupiers. The year 1598 is given in a source as the year of construction for the chapel, but the copper plate may initially have had a destination at a different location. This also applies to the polychrome wooden statue of Saint Macarius from the 16th century, which, according to oral sources, would always have belonged to the chapel. According to the land registry archives, the chapel was registered as a new building in 1860; It can be assumed that this is not correct and that it was about repair work as it still took place in the 20th century.

Stichting Open Kerken