“In my city we have a brewery in a church, we have a hotel in a church, we have a cultural center in a church, we have a library in a church. Mayor Bart Somers has been working for years to give many of the buildings a different purpose. Rumbold’s cathedral with its UNESCO World Heritage belfry tower. It has two dozen churches, several huddled close to St. Mechelen, a town of 85,000 just north of Brussels is the Roman Catholic center of Belgium. Some become eyesores in city centers, their maintenance a constant drain on finances. On average, every one of the 300 towns in Flanders has about six churches and often not enough faithful to fill a single one. Nowadays, visiting international choirs may find that their singers outnumber the congregation. Only 10% of Belgians still attended church regularly. A 2018 study from the PEW research group showed, in Belgium, that of the 83% that say they were raised Christian, only 55% still consider themselves so. It really stands out in Flanders, in northern Belgium, which has some of the greatest cathedrals on the continent and the finest art to fill them. It is a phenomenon seen over much of Europe’s Christian heartland from Germany to Italy and many nations in between. Something needs to be done and now, ever more of the once sacred structures are repurposed for anything from clothes shops and climbing walls to night clubs. Johan Bonny, bishop of Antwerp, told the Associated Press. On the other hand, there is no return to the past possible,” Mgr. Around the corner, a former Franciscan church is now a luxury hotel where music star Stromae spent his wedding night amid the stained-glass windows.Īcross Europe, the continent that nurtured Christianity for most of two millennia, churches, convents and chapels stand empty and increasingly derelict as faith and church attendance shriveled over the past half century. The building is to close down for two years while a cafe and concert stage are added, with plans to turn the church into “a new cultural hot spot in the heart of Mechelen,” almost within earshot of where Belgium's archbishop lives. MECHELEN, Belgium - The confessionals where generations of Belgians admitted their sins stood stacked in a corner of what was once Sacred Heart Church, proof the stalls - as well as the Roman Catholic house of worship - had outlived their purpose.
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