ANTWERP

Capital of Antwerp province, Belgium, on the Schelde River, 55 miles from the North Sea. It revived as a port when France reopened the Schelde to navigation in 1795, which had been closed since the Peace of westphalia (1648). The Diocese of Antwerp (created 1559, suppressed 1801–1961), suffragan to Mechelen-Brussels, is 985 square miles in area.

History. Christianity was first preached there by Saints eligius (647), amandus (650) and willibrord (697 and after). From the 7th to the 11th centuries there was a parish inside the bourg of Antwerp, which was part of the See of cambrai. The chapter of canons moved to the Church of Our Lady and left St. Michael Church, Antwerp's first church, to St. norbert's premonstratensians (1124).

In the 13th century the port of Antwerp began to develop; but annexation by the county of Flanders, which favored the port of Bruges, hampered its growth. Only in the late 15th century did Antwerp develop commercially to become the largest Atlantic port and the most important banking center of Europe in the 16th century. New parishes were added: St. Willibrord (1441), St. George (1477), St. Walburga and St. James (1477–79), and St. Andrew (1529).

This international commercial center, with an important German colony, was the first Lutheran center in the Low Countries. The first Protestants to be burned at the stake in the Low Countries were two Augustinians of Antwerp (1523). In vain did Charles V issue condemnations of heretics; Antwerp, concerned only with commercial prosperity, was quite tolerant in religion and invariably moderated governmental intervention in religious matters and the enforcement of Charles' condemnations. After Lutherans and Anabaptists, Calvinists became the important religious group in Antwerp (from 1560).

In 1559 Paul IV made Antwerp a see suffragan to Mechelen; but Antwerp, not wishing an Inquisitor bishop inside its walls, sent an embassy to Philip II in Madrid and the installation of a bishop was suspended sine die. Only under the duke of Alva could the first bishop obtain his see (1570). After the Spanish Fury, which destroyed 600 houses and massacred thousands of people in Antwerp (1576), Protestants held the city until they were expelled by Alexander Farnese (1585). The city of 100,000 (14,000 foreigners) was cut off from the sea by the Sea Beggars for more than 200 years and not until the 19th century did Antwerp revive as a world port. Its first bishops, F. Sonnius (1570–76), L. Torrentius (1586–95) and J. Miraeus (1603–11), with the aid of Jesuits and Capuchins especially, obtained the triumph of the Catholic Reformation. Its last bishop, C. F. Nelis (1785–98), opposed josephinism. The concordat of 1801 suppressed the see, which was not restored until 1961.

Art. Antwerp was a center of famous painters. In the 16th century Quinten Massys and the Brueghels prepared the way for the great school of Peter Paul Rubens, which included Anthony Van Dyck, Caspar de Crayer, Jacob Jordaens, Adriaen Brouwer and others, almost all of whom endowed churches with magnificent religious paintings. The Cathedral of Our Lady (1352–1606), with seven naves, is 384 feet long and 213 feet wide and has a tower 403 feet high; it is the largest church in Belgium. Although it was badly damaged by iconoclasts in 1566, it still has famous paintings by Rubens (Crucifixion, Descent from the Cross, the Assumption ) and statues by Artus Quellinus (1609–68). St. James Church (1491–1656), with many artistic masterpieces, and St. Paul's Church (1533–1621), with paintings by Rubens, Jordaens and David Teniers (1582–1649), are Gothic. The Jesuit St. Charles, a famous baroque church with many paintings by Rubens, was damaged in a fire in 1718. The hôtel de ville by Cornelius Floris de Vriendt stands on one side of the main square, which is bordered by other admirable buildings dating from the 16th century.

Monasteries. The Norbertine Abbey of St. Michael (1124), a double monastery for 30 years, was ruined by iconoclasts (1566, 1576) but flourished under J. C. Van der Sterre (d. 1652); confiscated by joseph ii in 1789 and suppressed in 1796, it was sold and demolished in 1831. It founded other famous abbeys, such as tongerloo (c. 1130) and Averbode (1134–35). Antwerp also had a Victorine priory (Sainte-Margrietendal), a charterhouse for men (Sainte-Cathérine-au-Mont-Sinaï, 1320), the Cistercian Peeter-Pots or St. Salvator (1446, an abbey in 1652), a beguine house (c. 1250), and other religious houses. The bollandist editors of the Acta Sanctorum lived in Antwerp from c. 1650 until the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773.

Bibliography: p. f. x. de ram, Synopsis actorum eccelesiae Antverpiensis (Brussels 1856); Synodicum belgicum, 3 (Louvain 1858). j. de wit, De kerken van Antwerpen (Antwerp 1910). É. de moreau, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. a. baudrillart et al., (Paris 1912–) 3:885–908; Histoire de l'Église en Belgique, 5 v. (Brussels 1945–52; 2 suppl.). j. a. goris, Lof van Antwerpen (Brussels 1940). a. van de velde, Antwerpen de Stoute (Bruges 1942). f. prims, Antwerpen door de eeuwen heen (Antwerp 1951); Antwerpen in de XVIII ^e eeuw (Antwerp 1951); Bouwstoffen voor de geschiedenis van Antwerpen in de nouveaux diocèses aux Pays-Bas, 1559–1570 (Brussels 1966). XIX ^e eeuw (Antwerp 1964). m. dierickx, L'Érection des, Annuario Pontificio (1965) 34.

[m. dierickx]