Our Lord in the Attic Church (Ons’ Lieve Heer op Solder) is the world’s most unusual church, a product of that Reformation period in the 1600s when Catholic worship was in disfavor in Amsterdam, but still tolerated and connived at by the civic authorities. The compromise they reached was a semi-clandestine form of Catholic services, conducted at times in the attics of normal houses!
This particular attic church, which actually occupies the top floor of the three adjoining buildings at 40 Oude Zijds Voorburgwal, represents the highest form of this covert church architecture: a miniature-sized and quite beautifully furnished cathedral, capable of accommodating as many as 200 worshipers, all concealed within three very typical, 17th-Century canal houses.
Because the downstairs portion of the main house has also been perfectly preserved, with its original furnishings and paintings, the entire establishment is known technically as the “Museum Amstelkring,” but all the world knows of its upstairs church as “Our Lord in the Attic” (“Ons’ Lieve Heer op Solder”). You can visit weekdays from 10 until 5, on Sundays from 1 to 4; and you should, because the oddness of this situation, combined with the ornateness all around, provides a fascinating glimpse into the spirit of the Dutch “Golden Age.”
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