Church of Our Lady-across-the-Dyle, Mechelen, Belgium

Church of Our Lady-across-the-Dyle was built in the 14th and 15th centuries on the site where Mechelen's first parish church probably stood. The tower contains a complete carillon with no fewer than 49 bells. The Dyle church houses some wonderful art treasures. Rubens painted a work for this church just as he had done for St John's. The fishmongers commissioned him to illustrate the wealth of their guild as they had done by building 'De Grooten Zalm' on the Zoutwerf. The large triptych entitled 'The miraculous draught of fishes' tells the story of the same name from the Bible. The fourteenth-century sculpture 'Our Lady with the Crooked Hip' is one of the glories of the church. It is the only free-standing sculpture in Mechelen from that period and it takes its name from Mary's characteristic stance.

References:

Mechelen Tourism

Religious sites in Belgium

User Reviews

fons fraters (14 months ago)
Mooie akoestiek

Griet Peters (15 months ago)
Mooie kerk met prachtige lichtinval door de glas-in-loodramen,die zelf meer dan de moeite zijn om te bekijken. De kerk is overdag toegankelijk. Je vindt er ook rust en stilte. In de kerk komt een levendige parochie samen, met prachtige en krachtige liturgie...

Abc Oude (15 months ago)
mooi vooral omdat alles zo oud is. houtwerk erg mooi

Jan Proost (2 years ago)
Gratis toegang Alle dagen open (behalve woensdag) vanaf 13u

Ramunė Vaičiulytė (2 years ago)
Well, beautiful ancient church, but the problem is its working hours - you cannot get inside when you want. I was not lucky to see - as I heard - beautiful interior and also felt the distance from that church as God house...

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The Kalozha church of Saints Boris and Gleb is the oldest extant structure in Hrodna. It is the only surviving monument of ancient Black Ruthenian architecture, distinguished from other Orthodox churches by prolific use of polychrome faceted stones of blue, green or red tint which could be arranged to form crosses or other figures on the wall.

The church is a cross-domed building supported by six circular pillars. The outside is articulated with projecting pilasters, which have rounded corners, as does the building itself. The ante-nave contains the choir loft, accessed by a narrow gradatory in the western wall. Two other stairs were discovered in the walls of the side apses; their purpose is not clear. The floor is lined with ceramic tiles forming decorative patterns. The interior was lined with innumerable built-in pitchers, which usually serve in Eastern Orthodox churches as resonators but in this case were scored to produce decorative effects. For this reason, the central nave has never been painted.

The church was built before 1183 and survived intact, depicted in the 1840s by Michał Kulesza, until 1853, when the south wall collapsed, due to its perilous location on the high bank of the Neman. During restoration works, some fragments of 12th-century frescoes were discovered in the apses. Remains of four other churches in the same style, decorated with pitchers and coloured stones instead of frescoes, were discovered in Hrodna and Vaŭkavysk. They all date back to the turn of the 13th century, as do remains of the first stone palace in the Old Hrodna Castle.

In 2004, the church was included in the Tentative List of UNESCO"s World Heritage Sites.

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Church of Our Lady-across-the-Dyle

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