St. Willibrord's Church

The Willibrorduskerk is a Roman Catholic parish church in the Dutch town of Bodegraven. The church from 1865 was designed by Pierre Cuypers and replaced an older hidden church. The church is part of the St. John the Baptist parish in which all the churches of Gouda and the surrounding area have merged. Until the Reformation, the old village church dedicated to Saint Gallus was the Catholic church. When, with the Reformation, this church became Protestant and the public practice of the Catholic faith was forbidden by law, churches were held in secret churches. From 1643 there was such a hidden church on the Oversteek, which, like the old village church, was dedicated to Saint Gallus. When religious freedom increased in the nineteenth century, plans were made for a grand Catholic church here as well. The driving force behind the new building was pastor Willibrord van Heyningen, who had become pastor in Bodegraven in 1857. Pierre Cuypers designed a church in neo-Gothic style. This makes this church both an early example of neo-Gothic architecture in the Netherlands, and one of the earliest church buildings in Cuypers' oeuvre. Construction began in 1862 and the church was completed in 1865. However, Father Willibrord Van Heyningen wanted to change the patron of the church from Saint Gallus to Saint Willibrord, the first bishop of Utrecht. The bishop at the time was against the name change. In the end, Van Heyningen managed to do it and in 1865 the church was consecrated as St. Willibrord's Church by Mgr. Wilmer.

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