Chapel of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows

The chapel was built in 1883 and is dedicated to Our Lady of Seven Sorrows. Doctor Desiré Robijns, a physician in Balegem, and August Verbruggen, a notary in Sint-Lievens-Houtem, bought the land from Jeanne Collette Waeytens in 1880. The property was parcelled out and sold in 1883 to Marcelin Verschaffelt-Porrez who had the chapel built in the same year. In 1892, the Camille Porrez-Meerhaege family inherited the chapel. In 1897 he sold the chapel to the George Vandevelde-Verbruggen family, a notary in Belsele. He bought the chapel for the intention of his seriously ill wife. In 1925 George Vandevelde donated the chapel to the church of Balegem.
Like almost all villages in Flanders, Balegem had many ecclesiastical 'processions' in previous centuries. There were the annual days of the cross, the sacrament procession, the St. Mark's procession and the half-harvest procession. All rooted in a deep Catholic-Christian tradition.

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