Heilig Kruis

For centuries the Church of the Holy Cross has been the spiritual heart of Stekene, in the Waasland of East Flanders. A Romanesque building first stood here; around 1200 it was replaced by an early-Gothic church with three aisles and a crossing tower.

The building grew with its community. In 1548 it gained a transept and side choirs. After a fire in 1592, repairs followed in the early seventeenth century; the aisles were reworked in 1651 and 1686, and the lower church re-vaulted in 1767-1769. Grown dilapidated and too small, the church was enlarged and partly restored to its original form in 1897 under Jules Goethals. Today it is a three-aisled brick cross-church with a striking octagonal early-Gothic crossing tower and three side choirs with canted ends.

The interior is largely neo-Gothic. Two confessionals date from 1742 and 1793, the communion rail from the first quarter of the eighteenth century. The monumental pulpit was designed in 1847 by Franciscus-Joannes Bouwens; Jozef Jan Tuerlinckx set its statues in place in 1853. The church is a protected monument.