U.S. Urged To Help Save Remains Of Church Believed Used By Pilgrims
By Patrick Goodenough
CNS London Bureau Chief
February 21, 2001
London (CNSNews.com) - A city council in the Netherlands is on the verge of destroying the remains of a 17th century church linked to the Pilgrim Fathers, and decisive intervention by the Bush administration may be the only way to save it. The historic city of Leiden wants to sweep away the remnant of the Vrouwekerk (Church of Our Lady) in favor of a shopping center and public square. Once part of a church where English- and French-speaking refugees from religious persecution reportedly worshipped together, the site is now ridiculed in the Dutch media as a graffiti-sporting ruin which pub-goers in the city of 110,000 use to relieve themselves. But, according to an American historian living in Leiden, the site's primary significance is "as a marker of the historic place where it stands, not as an item of architectural significance." Moreover, he and others want to see it restored and beautified. After appeals to Dutch national and local governments came up against a stone wall, Christians in the U.S. have even sent a last-ditch appeal to the Dutch monarch, Queen Beatrix. Conservative and liberal churches with their roots in New England congregations founded by the Pilgrims have appealed to Leiden not to destroy one of a few remaining links to a community some of whose members sailed to America on the Mayflower in 1620. But the authorities have ignored the protests, while insisting that there is no link between the ruined remnant of the church and the Pilgrims. Last month it announced that the demolition would go ahead. Campaigners say the Vrouwekerk was used by French-speaking Huguenot Calvinists - also fleeing persecution - and by the English-speaking Pilgrims, who spent the years 1609 -1620 in Leiden, before heading for New England. Those who sailed on the Mayflower included the forebears of four American presidents - Ulysses Grant, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, George Bush and George W. Bush. Others who reportedly worshipped at the church include the founders of New York City - around two-dozen Huguenot families who sailed to North America soon after the Mayflower, and became the first European settlers on Manhattan Island. Driving the U.S. part of the campaign to save the remnant are the United Church of Christ (UCC), the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference and the Unitarian Universalist Association. Individual members of other churches have also supported the petition, but the campaign hopes more evangelicals, in particular, will express their concerns to the government. "If the Bush Administration is going to take a public stand on this issue, I think that will happen because evangelicals make it clear that the Vrouwekerk is more than a 'ruin' but a cultural monument of international significance," said Andy Lang of the UCC on Wednesday. The churches have urged the Bush administration to intervene, but have so far had no response from the White House or State Department. That conservative and liberal Christians are involved in the campaign was unusual but fitting, said Lang, because the Pilgrims and Huguenot communities "had a decisive influence on U.S. religious, cultural and political history." "Regardless of our political opinions or religious tradition, we are all inheritors of this legacy. So this is a good, unifying issue for an Administration that has made clear its commitment to reach out to all American[s] regardless of political philosophy. It is also a good test for evangelical Christians of their influence in the Bush administration." Ignored The Leiden authorities and Netherlands government have consistently declined to reply to, or even acknowledge, any of the correspondence the churches had sent on the matter, Lang said. A petition was sent last year to Leiden mayor Jan Postma, with a copy to the Dutch ambassador to the United States, he said. Neither replied. On Feb. 3, after the authorities ruled that the demolition would go ahead, the churches sent a renewed protest to Postma, and a copy of the petition to Queen Beatrix. There has been no response. The UCC's president, the Rev. John H. Thomas, then wrote a personal letter to the Netherlands ambassador in Washington, with the appeal to Queen Beatrix and other supporting materials. Again, no response has been received, and Lang said it was possible the petition had never been brought to the Queen's attention. "The Netherlands response to these protests has been simply to ignore them." Link denied The city council continues to deny any link between the church and the Pilgrims. A major historical church in the city, Pieterskerk (St. Peter's Church), has also rubbished the claims, saying Americans should not be concerned about the plan to demolish the "dreary remainders" of the Vrouwekerk - "only a minor wall." No Pilgrims worshipped at the Vrouwekerk, the church foundation claims in a press release on its website. Leiden's Pilgrim history, it says, is actually to be found at the Pieterskerk. But Lang has little doubt about the relationship. He said the names of Pilgrims who worshipped with the Huguenot congregation based at the Vrouwekerk were in the Leiden city archives, as well as the records of the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts. Among the members of the congregation who sailed on the Mayflower, he said, were the Mahieu and de la Noye families (anglicized as Mayhew and Delano), who are the direct ancestors of four presidents, including the current one. Historian Jeremy Bangs, director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, said campaigners have proposed an alternative development to beautify the site, which has not been maintained since it was excavated and restored in 1979-1980. It envisages the uncovering and displaying of more of the presently hidden architectural remains. The relation of the ruins to the original building could be made visible by means of a bronze model of the church as it was. "Texts and maps can explain the places of origin and places to which people migrated, as well as the role of the Vrouwekerk in Leiden's social history during the Middle Ages and after the Reformation," he said. Bangs believes that officials' fears about a loss of face may be one reason for the council's reluctance to acknowledge a link between the Pilgrims and the church. Earlier, the city provided information from its own archives and local monument body to a national monuments commission, to back its assertion that the church remnant has little or no special historic significance. If it now acknowledges that there was indeed a historic link, it would follow that the people who supplied the original information were ill informed, he said. "Protecting government officials from loss of face occupies a lot of publicly funded time here." The city council is legally entitled to go ahead with the demolition immediately, said Lang of the UCC, even though such a move may anger minority parties on the council who oppose it. "We are in a race ... but we don't know when the clock runs out. At this point, only international protest and some decisive action by the Bush administration can assure the survival of the church's remains." Attempts to get comment from Leiden's mayor Tuesday and Wednesday were unsuccessful.