Liège -Temple protestant

Liège is the center of the largest Walloon agglomeration, and the cultural center of the Walloon region of Belgium. The city, with a population of about 200.000, is located at the confluence of the Ourthe and Meuse rivers.

Around 705, Saint Lambert of Maastricht is credited with completing the Christianization of the region, but conversion may still not have been quite universal, since Lambert was murdered in Liège. To enshrine his relics, the successor, Hubertus (later St. Hubert), built a basilica which became the nucleus of the city.
In 1468, following an uprising of the inhabitants against Burgundian rule, xof Burgundy had the city plundered and systematically destroyed. The few survivors who had fled into the forests—Charles the Bold allegedly had more than 5,000 inhabitants murdered—were only able to return to the city for reconstruction after seven years.

In 1789, partly in connection with the French Revolution, the Liège Revolution occurred. It was directed against the absolutist rule of the Prince-Bishop and was crushed in early 1791 by troops commissioned by the Holy Roman Empire. In 1795, Liège was occupied by French troops and became part of the First French Republic. The Congress of Vienna annexed it to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which in 1830 became the Kingdom of Belgium, to which Liège has belonged ever since.


The Protestant Reformation here was strongly influenced here by Idelette de Bure, a native of Liège who married Jean Calvin in 1530.

As late as the early 19th century, Protestant services were held in several halls throughout the city. Services were conducted alternately in French and Dutch. After the Belgian Revolution, which led to the secession of the southern provinces from the Netherlands in 1830 and the founding of the independent Kingdom of Belgium, the Protestant congregations were protected by the Belgian King Leopold I.

The church, built according to designs by architect Georges Appia, is made of red brick and concrete. A three-bay, semicircularly vaulted porch forms an inner courtyard. The floor plan follows the traditional form of a Latin basilica with three naves.