Basilica of Saint Nicholas

For more than two centuries Amsterdam’s Catholics worshipped out of sight, in attics and behind ordinary front doors. When they were finally free to build, they chose the most visible spot in the city.

After 1578, Catholic churches in Amsterdam had to be invisible. Mass was said in converted lofts and back rooms, tolerated on the condition that nothing showed from the street. One of those attic churches survives a few minutes’ walk from here, on the Oudezijds Voorburgwal. Its congregation is the one that built this.

Equal rights came in the 1790s, and in the 19th century a wave of Catholic building followed. This church went up between 1884 and 1887, at the very moment Centraal Station was rising across the water. Everyone arriving in Amsterdam by train would step out and see two towers and a dome. After three centuries of hiding, that was the point.

It is dedicated to Saint Nicholas, as the Oude Kerk was before the Reformation. He is the patron saint of sailors and of Amsterdam itself, and he is the same Nicholas who arrives by boat every November as Sinterklaas, the figure who crossed the Atlantic with Dutch settlers and became Santa Claus.

The architect, Adrianus Bleijs, mixed Baroque and Renaissance forms where most Catholic churches of the time were Gothic. In 2012, on its 125th anniversary, the church was raised to the rank of basilica.