{"id":148663,"date":"2010-08-04T10:56:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-04T08:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oldaalten.nl\/aalten-achteruit\/aalten-and-lichtenvoorde-are-enclaves-not-naobers\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T01:14:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T23:14:03","slug":"aalten-and-lichtenvoorde-are-enclaves-not-naobers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oldaalten.nl\/en\/aalten-achteruit\/aalten-and-lichtenvoorde-are-enclaves-not-naobers\/","title":{"rendered":"Aalten and Lichtenvoorde are enclaves, not ‘naobers’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Two neighboring villages: one Catholic, the other Protestant. Does rivalry still exist? Trouw investigates. Today part 2: Aalten and Lichtenvoorde. Aalten is known as the ‘Jerusalem of the Achterhoek’ thanks to its many Reformed churches. Neighboring Lichtenvoorde, by contrast, lies in a Roman Catholic enclave. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Aalten<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Achterhoekers are not known for being pedantic. Except in Aalten. Those terraces on the Market in front of the Old St Helen’s Church<\/a>? “That would have been considered blasphemy in Aalten in the past,” says Hans de Graaf. He was born in 1943 into a Roman Catholic family in neighboring Bredevoort. He has lived and attended church in Aalten for years. “As a child, you felt like you were a second-class citizen,” he recalls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1950s and 60s, Protestants dominated Aalten, divided into ‘de fienen’ (the fine) and ‘de groffen’ (the coarse). The Dutch Reformed were not as strict. They lived Biblically according to the ‘coarse’ line. The seceded Reformed, numerous in Aalten, however, followed orthodox dogmatics with ‘fine’ precision. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Jerusalem of the Achterhoek<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Fienen\u2019. You pronounce it with a long, drawn-out ‘ie’. Frits van Lochem does so too. In 1946, he was born into a Dutch Reformed family in Roman Catholic Lichtenvoorde, eight kilometers from Aalten. Between the two villages lies a rolling no-man’s-land. If you speak of Aalten in Lichtenvoorde, the conversation quickly turns to ‘those fienen’ and ‘the Jerusalem of the Achterhoek’. “We are more oriented towards Groenlo,” says Van Lochem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A folk faith prevails in the Achterhoek. In daily life, it does not matter whether your ancestors remained Roman Catholic or eventually converted to Protestantism. The Achterhoek tradition of naoberschap<\/a> (neighborliness) transcends the dogmas of Rome and Protestant synods. The area is divided like a checkerboard pattern into villages with slightly more Roman Catholics and those with slightly more Protestants. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Neighboring enclaves<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Two neighboring enclaves form a major exception: the Reformed Aalten and the Roman Catholic strongholds of Groenlo and Lichtenvoorde. How did this come to be and what is their relationship? Hans de Graaf and Frits van Lochem can draw from their experiences as members of a religious minority. They do not know each other. Yet they once cycled past each other daily\u2014one on the way to the Protestant secondary school in Aalten, the other to the Roman Catholic one in Lichtenvoorde. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Johanneskerk (PKN) of Lichtenvoorde<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Van Lochem enjoys being active for the community. He was once an alderman in Lichtenvoorde before the municipality merged with Groenlo to become Oost Gelre. Now he manages the administration of the Johanneskerk. As a Reformed boy, he had a pleasant childhood, he says. “Of course, you had a Protestant and a Roman Catholic school,” he says. “For secondary education, you had to go to Aalten. You simply went to a school of your own religion.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a time, there was a separate Protestant football club and gymnastics association. The Protestant drum band did not play at Lichtenvoorde festivities on Sundays, he remembers. But in Lichtenvoorde, where 90 percent of the people were Roman Catholic, people interacted normally. “My father was an upholsterer,” says Van Lochem. “The monastery was an important client. He wouldn’t have earned a living from Protestants alone.” <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Protestants ‘determined everything’<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As easily as the people of Lichtenvoorde bridged the pillarized differences, the dividing lines in Aalten must have been difficult. “Very little was allowed,” says De Graaf. “Dancing was impossible. As Roman Catholics, we had our own youth club. Many marriages resulted from that. You thought in the 1950s: those Protestants determine everything here. And then the swimming pool issue arose. A massive row! People cut open the barbed wire around the pool to be able to swim on Sundays. Nowadays, everything is different. A worldly wind blows through Aalten. Still.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lichtenvoorde and Groenlo were synonymous with a pleasant life for a Roman Catholic boy from Aalten. “There were the assembly days and the processions,” De Graaf remembers. Lichtenvoorde is frivolous with its flower parade, and Groenlo is known for its carnival. But for him, those places remained far away. In Aalten, during his youth, about 18 percent of the people were Roman Catholic. The Reformed identity weighed on everyone. The Roman Catholicism of ‘the enclave Groenlo and Lichtenvoorde’ was the subject of study for history teacher Thielen from Boxtel in 1966. Two developments explain how an enclave could arise, according to his book on ‘the enclave’. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Religious struggle<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The struggle between the dioceses of Utrecht and M\u00fcnster for control over this region lasted until 1823. The Bishop of M\u00fcnster asserted himself quite strongly in the eastern Netherlands. Furthermore, around 1600, the Achterhoek had been the battlefield between the State armies of the House of Orange and the Spanish rulers. That struggle had left its religious marks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1597, the army of Prince Maurice conquered the towns of Bredevoort and Groenlo from the Spaniards on behalf of the (Protestant) States-General in The Hague. But in 1606, the ‘States’ lost the fortress again. Although Prince Frederick Henry recaptured Groenlo in 1627, he could no longer win over most of the inhabitants to Protestantism. The Roman Catholic movement of the Counter-Reformation had taken root there. Nearby Lichtenvoorde, which had its own chapel since 1496, also remained loyal to Rome. And M\u00fcnster. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Monumental<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Frits van Lochem shows the white-plastered Johanneskerk from 1648. It is monumental. The church stands on the foundations of the Roman Catholic chapel from 1496. “It is one of the oldest Protestant churches in the Netherlands,” he says. The chapel fell into the hands of the Dutch Reformed minority after 1627, who were aligned with the new State authority. They wanted a less dilapidated house of worship. “Collections were held throughout the country for this church,” says Van Lochem. “Frederick Henry also paid. Donations came from as far as Amsterdam and its surroundings.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Old map with the Cross Chapel at Hemden, just across the border near Aalten<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Roman Catholics who remained in large numbers in Groenlo and Lichtenvoorde, as well as an Aalten minority, became dependent on the Kreuzkapellen (Cross Chapels) that were built in border villages like Zwillbrock, Hemden<\/a>, and near the city of Bocholt. The ‘papists’ walked to the border of the Republic with the M\u00fcnsterland. But in large parts of the Achterhoek, including Aalten, the priest suddenly became a minister and solemnly renounced all Roman ‘superstitions’. His flock then became Protestant as well, though not immediately with full conviction. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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The nature of the Achterhoeker<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The nature of the Achterhoeker is, as Reformed minister J.H. Jansen wrote in 1957, seemingly quite easy-going. They tend to wait and see, he stated in a sociological study of religious life in the Achterhoek. The community takes precedence over the individual, he observed. Scribe Flip de Bruijn of the Protestant Congregation of Lichtenvoorde can still identify with that observation in 2010. “The community here is so interwoven and there are so many mixed marriages,” he says. “There are no sharp contrasts. People accept each other without conflict.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What then makes Aalten such an exception? In 1845, following the example of the Groningen minister De Cock, a portion of the Dutch Reformed in Aalten seceded. Subsequently, the Doleantie (1886-1892)<\/a> found resonance in the Achterhoek, particularly in Aalten. From both schisms, the village gained the Christian Reformed and the Reformed Church. “The cause was that a beloved preacher ‘went along’ and was deposed by the classical board,” Jansen explained regarding the Doleantie in Aalten. “He took many families with him.” <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Ecclesiastical diversity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Roman
The Roman Catholic St Helen’s Church in Aalten<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Most Achterhoek Protestants remained mildly Dutch Reformed. Aalten possesses an orthodoxy that now fits better with the ChristianUnion than the SGP. Members of the Reformed Association or the Restored Reformed are scarce in the Achterhoek, and the Reformed Congregations even more so. But the growing religious differences between Aalten and the rest of the region led to the nickname ‘Jerusalem of the Achterhoek’. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hans de Graaf is familiar with that nickname. “What do they mean by it?” he wonders. If it refers to the ecclesiastical diversity of Aalten, he can imagine it. He himself delved into the Roman Catholic church history of the region. Aalten owes the survival of its Roman Catholic community to the arrival of the spinning and weaving mill of the German Driessen family<\/a> in the nineteenth century, he is firmly convinced. “Our church community stands on the shoulders of a small group of pioneers,” he says. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Change<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Anyone driving into Aalten today is alerted by black billboards on the access road to the fact that ‘God is love’ and that ‘He loves you too’. In the village, you will find a unique church: a bilingual evangelical congregation for Germans and Dutch people known as the Euregiokerk. ‘Two nations, one faith’ reads the large text on the facade of the formerly Reformed Westerkerk<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hans de Graaf notices that Aalten is changing. “You can now easily organize something on a Sunday,” he says. “That is no longer an obstacle.” What has remained is the non-relationship with Lichtenvoorde. “The Aalten community does not look to the north,” he says. Yet, ecclesiastically, that will now be necessary. The Diocese of Utrecht recently merged nine parishes into one, so that Aalten now belongs with Lichtenvoorde and Groenlo. The Ludger Parish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs Roman Catholics in Aalten, we have a strong self-awareness,\u201d says De Graaf. \u201cThat stems from the idea: \u2018we are still here too!\u2019 The small Catholic pillar made itself clearly heard in society. In Lichtenvoorde, almost everyone is Catholic. There is a different attitude there.\u201d De Graaf misses that resilience in the large parish. He is taking on new projects himself. Together with Catholics and Protestants, he is developing a walking route from Zutphen to M\u00fcnster<\/a>, following in the footsteps of the ninth-century evangelist Ludger. After all, he brought the gospel to all Achterhoekers, didn’t he? <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Ecumenism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It is a language that Frits van Lochem and Flip de Bruijn in Roman Catholic Lichtenvoorde would understand. To their great regret, the once lively ecumenical tradition is disappearing there. Less and less is done together. “Ecumenism is fading,” says De Bruijn. “We want to. But Rome does not prioritize ecumenism. Now that the parishes have been merged, you notice there is less time for it.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modern life in Lichtenvoorde largely exists without church attendance. On Sundays, you can shop there peacefully. Residents even shrug their shoulders at the Sunday opening of the supermarket, Van Lochem notes. No one here thinks of Aalten. There is more rivalry and at the same time kinship with ‘d\u2019n Grolschen’ (Groenlo). The Protestant Congregation of Lichtenvoorde is now also looking in that direction for closer cooperation with the Dutch Reformed. “No, there are no ecclesiastical contacts with Aalten,” says De Bruijn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is little affinity with Protestant orthodoxy in Lichtenvoorde. Yet it is precisely those believers from Lichtenvoorde who want to work the Achterhoek, an ‘ecclesiastical white spot’, through their Christian bookstore ‘Licht’. It is closed today. “That belongs to the Reformed-Liberated, doesn’t it?” De Bruijn and Van Lochem ask each other. “They aren’t from here. They probably think there’s some evangelizing to be done here.” <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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‘Keisl\u00f6ppers’ and ‘de fienen’<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The boulder with the lion statue on the Market of Lichtenvoorde (photo: achterhoek.nl<\/a>)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Lichtenvoorde is traditionally Roman Catholic. In 1496, the Lord of Bronckhorst founded a chapel there. On its foundations, the few Protestants built a new church in 1648 with ‘State funds’. In the nineteenth century, the town (now 13,000 inhabitants) received many migrant workers from Brabant for work in the shoe industry. To honor King William III’s 25th anniversary in office in 1874, these Roman Catholic shoemakers dragged a 20,000-kilogram boulder to the center and decorated it with a proud lion. They earned the people of Lichtenvoorde the nickname ‘keisl\u00f6ppers’ (boulder draggers). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aalten grew over the past century from a small village into a central town with nearly 13,000 inhabitants. Since the nineteenth century, Aalten distinguished itself through church secessions that were almost non-existent elsewhere in the Achterhoek. Many proved sensitive to a more ‘fine’ (fijnzinniger), Reformed faith, which earned the people of Aalten the nickname ‘de fienen’. The village still has a relatively large number of Protestant and Evangelical churches. The ecclesiastical variety on such a small scale is unique in this border region. This gave Aalten the name ‘the Jerusalem of the Achterhoek’. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Source<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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