Behind an ordinary canal-house façade, a seventeenth-century Catholic church occupies several upper floors. Our Lord in the Attic preserves a period when public worship was restricted and a household could quietly create space for a congregation above the street.
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From the street, this looks like a canal house; above you, several floors open into a church. Our Lord in the Attic was commissioned by Catholic merchant Jan Hartman in the seventeenth century, when Catholics in Amsterdam could not worship openly in a public church.
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UpgradeQuick facts
- Jan Hartman commissioned the hidden church in his canal house.
- The church was inaugurated in 1663.
- Catholic house churches were tolerated when they did not appear as public churches from the street.
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