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St. Stefanus, Ghent

19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in BelgiumRoman Catholic churches completed in 1841Roman Catholic churches in Ghent
Gent Parochiekerk Sint Stephanus PM 66856
Gent Parochiekerk Sint Stephanus PM 66856

St. Stefanus is a Catholic parish church in Ghent, Belgium, part of an Augustinian monastery. It is dedicated to St. Stephen. The present building dates from 1841.The former monastery of 1606 was almost completely destroyed by a fire in 1838. The Augustinians temporarily used the church of the Carmelites. The church was rebuilt on a design by Jean Baptiste De Baets, using items brought over from the Carmelite church, including a 17th-century Baroque pulpit, the choir for the monks, and eight confession stalls. The church was also equipped with statues of saints, including one of St. Stephen created by Brother Prosper Venneman, who also designed the high altar. The church was consecrated on 26 December 1841, the patron saint's feast day. The tower was completed in 1849.Several altars are works by Gaspar de Crayer. The main organ was built by Philippe Forrest in 1873. A second instrument is a Flentrop-organ, built in 1962, originally for a Baptist church in Enschede. When that church was put to other use, the organ was sold to the Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels, where it was played by Pierre Cochereau. It was then moved to Ghent.The church and the monastery were listed as historic monuments in 1958; the church was listed as an item of architectural heritage in 2009.The church is a concert venue for mostly sacred music focused on the organs. The program included in 2017 an international organ festival on the theme Humor, with Winfried Bönig, the cathedral organist of Cologne, playing works by Bach, Franz Lehrndorfer and Naji Hakim, among others. A concert programmed for the "Maarten Luther-jaar", features Max Reger's Der 100. Psalm in the organ version by François Callebout, performed by the international Reger-Chor, conducted by Gabriel Dessauer, with Ignace Michiels, cathedral organist of Bruges.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article St. Stefanus, Ghent (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

St. Stefanus, Ghent
Sint-Margrietstraat, Ghent

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N 51.060042 ° E 3.720611 °
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Sint-Margrietstraat 34;36
9000 Ghent (Ghent)
East Flanders, Belgium
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Gent Parochiekerk Sint Stephanus PM 66856
Gent Parochiekerk Sint Stephanus PM 66856
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County of Flanders
County of Flanders

The County of Flanders was one of the most powerful political entities in the medieval Low Countries, located on the North Sea coast of what is now Belgium. Unlike its neighbours such as the counties of Brabant and Hainaut, it was within the territory of the Kingdom of France. The counts of Flanders held the most northerly part of the kingdom, and were among the original twelve peers of France. For centuries, the economic activity of the Flemish cities such as Ghent, Bruges and Ypres made Flanders one of the most affluent regions in Europe, and also gave them strong international connections to trading partners. Up to 1477, the core area under French suzerainty was west of the Scheldt and was called "Royal Flanders" (Dutch: Kroon-Vlaanderen, French: Flandre royale). Aside from this, the counts, from the 11th century onward, held land east of the river as a fief of the Holy Roman Empire: "Imperial Flanders" (Rijks-Vlaanderen or Flandre impériale). The county joined its Low Country neighbours within the Burgundian Netherlands from 1384, which eventually complicated its relationship with France. Most of the county became part of the Empire after the Peace of Madrid in 1526 and the Peace of the Ladies in 1529. Having already regained much, by 1795, the rest – within the Austrian Netherlands – was acquired likewise by France under the French First Republic, recognized by treaty in 1797. Resulting from the Battle of Waterloo of the same year, it passed to the newly established United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815. The former County of Flanders, except for French Flanders, is the only part of the late medieval French kingdom outside of modern-day France (Catalonia having been renounced in 1258).