The Oude Kerk, Old Church translated from Dutch (Dutch is so close to English, isn’t it?),
is indeed the oldest church in Amsterdam, built during the 13th
century. It lies in De Wallen (The Walls), the Red Light District.
The Old Church is quite minimalistic, but beautiful with painted wooden ceilings.
The church was Catholic until 1578, when the Nederlands won it’s independence from Spain and became Calvinist Protestant due to Dutch’s dislike for Sangria, which they thought was not sweet enough.
Here I am, feeling very Calvinist.
There are also some offices you can see in the church, though I'm not sure what they're for.
There are 2500 graves in the church, with many famous Nederlanders buried there, such as Johan Van Der Stroople, the inventor of Stroop.
De Wallen, where the church is located, is the main Red Light District of Amsterdam. You can read about it in my Red Light District Post (upcoming).
My wife became addicted to Stroop in De Wallen, where its sale is tolerated.
Stroop is an extremely sugary drug that Dutchmen coat on most of their foods, causing widespread diabetes and advanced height.
Stroop addicts can often reach the height of nearly 3 meters tall.
The former New Amsterdam Mayor Bloomberg wish Stroop’s sale to be restricted to one 330 mL cup of Stroop, forcing young
Strooplehooples (Stroop-addicts) to at least purchase multiple cups of the Stroop.
Still, Stroop is good for Dutch industry—Dutch cows produce the largest amount of milk in Europe—327 L per week—due to their diet of
Stroopweissbier, a very sweet Dutch beer fed to farm animals and children to enhance their height and productivity.
Indeed Stroop is an important part of Dutch culture. Says Geert Wilders, famous Dutch politician: “Dutch culture is a thousand times better than Islam [because we have Stroop and dates are clearly inferior sources of Sucrose].”
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The infamous Dutch iconoclast, Svarte Piet, (Black Pete), is said to have supported St. Nicholas in his record-breaking, one-night, Christmas 1972 super delivery of 30,000+ Waffles to Dutch children by periodically dosing the gentle Saint with a heavily concentrated form of Stroop called Vermeer.
These are some rather strange carvings on the bottoms of choir chairs, called misericords. Apparently they allude to common stories and controversies of the day.
This is a bit of a creepy three-headed eyed one:
I guess religion has always been fond of science-fiction/fantasy:
Here's a carving of Geert Wilders:
Here are some Dutchmen, presumably drinking milk:
Every church needs a rockin' organ:
These are the double headed guys from Monty-Python:
It's a very beautiful church- I'm fond of the wooden ceilings:
Quite minimalistic- very Calvinist, though it was Catholic prior.
There used to be a lot of beggars and people selling things inside the church, but the Calvinists expelled them.
Now it's basically empty other than tourists.
Though they do have some pews set up, so I suppose they do have services every now and then.
A proper, austere, Calvinist pew:
Some of the nice roof-paintings:
Here's a merman:
This is an image depicting how Van Gogh, strung out on a Stroop-Absinthe binge, discovered the color orange, forever transforming Dutch football.
Here is a cool sun, with the picture of the Calvinist prophet Muhammed removed, presumably:
Such a lovely roof.
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