The Cross in Amsterdam’s Smallest Church

In 1946, the Mennonite minister Willem Frederik Golterman (1898-1990) was preparing to leave his job as minister with the Mennonite congregation of Amsterdam for a position as professor with the Doopsgezind Seminarium [Dutch Mennonite Seminary]. The congregation wished to offer him a gift, and he requested that a cross be installed behind the pulpit. A white, wooden cross was put up in the Meerpadkerk in 1947.

This little wooden church was built in 1843. Three Mennonites living in the area had petitioned the congregation of Amsterdam regarding the need for an additional church: for residents of the isolated villages of Buiksloot and Nieuwendam, the walk and boat journey to cross the IJ to get to Amsterdam was too difficult and time consuming. The Amsterdam congregation agreed to make a yearly donation to support a new church; however, the Mennonites there would have to raise their own funds to build the worship place. Many contributed, and the funds were raised. The church was modelled after the Mennonite church in Knollendam, and originally the pulpit and the benches along the walls (at the time, for the seating of the men) were purchased from the Oude Huys (the church of the Frisian Mennonites) in Zaandam-Westzijde.

Over the years, there were many moments when the future of the church seemed to be threatened, whether due to building renovation costs or shrinking attendance. The Waterland flood of 1916 left the church and entire street a meter and half under water, requiring significant repairs. By the 1960s, the building was again in need of major renovation. This investment was made, and the church was even expanded by “one window length.” The Meerpadkerk, which has services twice a month, is still considered the smallest church building in Amsterdam.

There continues to be some debate among regular attendees about the placement of the cross in the church space there. Crosses are not typical in Dutch Mennonite churches, though there are a handful that do have them. Mennonite churches have indeed traditionally been plain and without ornamentation, symbols, or artworks in their interiors – though today there is some flexibility on this. This cross is, in any case, taken up as one of the visual components in a quilt commemorating the 150th anniversary of the church. The other elements in the quilt are the lamb and sun (the logo of Amsterdam’s Mennonite congregation), an open bible on the lectern, linked chains that refer to the former Meerpadkerk newsletter called De Schakel [The Link], and Menno Simons’s “Fundament text” (For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 3:11, NIV).