St. Peter and Paul's Church

The Peter and Paul Church is a Roman Catholic parish church in the Dutch town of Everdingen. The monumental church from 1899 was designed by Alfred Tepe and replaced an older barn church. Since 1 January 2011, the church has been part of the Holy Trinity parish, which also includes Vianen and Leerdam.

Until the construction of this church, the Catholic community of Everdingen and the surrounding area used a simple barn church. Since the Reformation, the public practice of the Catholic faith was forbidden by law. Catholic church buildings were not allowed to be recognizable as such from the outside. That is why they used hidden churches and barn churches for their church services.

That changed in the nineteenth century. The second half of the nineteenth century in particular was characterized by a wave of neo-Gothic churches.
The Peter and Paul Church can be placed in this wave of construction. In 1876 Alfred Tepe was asked to design a church for Everdingen. That same year, the foundation stone for the presbytery was laid. Three years later, the church was completed. It is one of the smallest churches in the architect's oeuvre. Despite the small size of the church, Tepe has managed to turn it into a three-aisled pseudo-basilica.

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