Churches
There are numerous Protestant churches in Winschoten including an assembly of Plymouth Brethren. The oldest church dates back to the 13th century in style mingling Roman and Gothic features. There is a Dutch Reformed church on Marktplein. A free-standing 16th-century bell tower is one of the features of the Winschoten skyline.
There is a Roman Catholic church dedicated to Saint Vitus, built by Alfred Tepe in 1880. It is a neo-gothic church with stained glass windows by Kocken and a sandstone highaltar from Freitag in Münster. This altar was formerly placed in the Saint Boniface church in Nieuwe Pekela. When this church was demolished it was brought to Winschoten to replace an old altar.
There used to be a thriving Jewish community. In 1940 Winschoten had the second largest Jewish community in The Netherlands after Amsterdam. During the Second World War, Winschoten was a transit port to Germany for the Jew-transports. Of the 493 Jews that lived in Winschoten at the beginning of the war, only 20 survived.
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Famous quotes containing the word churches:
“Good churches are not built by bad men; at least, there must be probity and enthusiasm somewhere in the society. These minsters were neither built nor filled by atheists.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The churches ... have lost much of their authority over youth because they have refused to re-examine their religious sanctions and their dogmatic preaching in the light of modern physiology, psychology and sociology.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“A few years ago, the liberal churches complained that the Calvinistic church denied to them the name of Christian. I think the complaint was confession; a religious church would not complain.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)