Clandestine church

According to historian Benjamin Kaplan, clandestine churches became common in Europe in the wake of the Reformation as a way for governments to permit a degree of religious toleration for minority Christian denominations and Jews. Both political and religious considerations frequently led governments to ban all worship not sanctioned by the state, and in many countries, members of minority religions worshiped together in total secrecy, risking punishment by the state. However, such a regime was frequently difficult to enforce, and as a result, while many jurisdictions permitted only one form of worship, authorities knowingly permitted members of minority faiths to worship privately. In others, the law permitted public worship by minority faiths, but only if it was more or less invisible to the general public. The 1648 Treaty of Osnabruck, part of the Peace of Westphalia, specified three types of worship: "domestic devotion", public religious services ("exercitium religionis publicum"), and private religious services ("exercitium religionis privatum"). It is into this last category that clandestine churches fall. These churches were characterized by group religious services carried out by clergy "in their own houses or in other houses designated for the purpose," and not "in churches at set hours." Artists who painted works commissioned by clandestine churches include Gerard van Honthorst, Abraham Bloemaert, Jan Miense Molenaer, Pieter de Grebber, Claes Corneliszoon Moeyaert and Jan de Bray. ==Types==

, a rural clandestine Catholic church built to resemble a barn Some are freestanding buildings constructed in rear courtyards. What they share is that they are not readily recognizable as houses of worship by passersby. Such churches were built in large numbers during the time of the Dutch Republic for use by Catholics, Remonstrants, Lutherans, and Mennonites. In cities schuilkerken were especially established in houses and warehouses, whereas in the countryside such churches generally had the appearance of a shed and so became known as Schuurkerken (barn churches). All clandestine churches of necessity lacked exterior markers that would identify them as churches; they had no bells, towers, steeples, crosses, icons or exterior architectural splendor. Rural St. Ninian's Church, Tynet, Scotland, is a typical, rural clandestine Catholic church. Built in 1755, it resembles a long, low barn. It is a dramatic contrast with its replacement, St. Gregory's Church, Preshome, Scotland, the first openly Catholic church to be built in Scotland after the Reformation, whose proud Italian Baroque façade with the date in Latin, "DEO 1788", announces its Catholicism to the world. Freestanding urban Amsterdam's Vrijburg (1629) is a typical freestanding, urban clandestine church. It is built at the center of the block, completely surrounded by houses on all four sides, so that it neither fronts on, nor is visible from, any public street. House churches The church Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder in Amsterdam, currently a museum, is a notable example of a house Catholic church. A Jewish house synagogue survives in Traenheim in Alsace. It is an upstairs room in a half-timbered house renovated for use as a place of public worship in 1723 over the "vociferous" objections of the town's pastor but with the permission of the government. The room still has Hebrew prayers on the walls. ==See also==