The unique side of city's old churches

By Ida Indawati Khouw

In commemoration of the Easter Day on Apr. 23, the serial on old and protected buildings in Jakarta will be focused on old churches. This is the 35th item of a series of articles, published every Saturday in The Jakarta Post.

JAKARTA (JP): City residents can no longer visit the beautiful and ornamented churches in the old city of Batavia (old name for Jakarta), at present downtown Kota area in West Jakarta, as all of them were already demolished hundreds of years ago.

Unlike present churches made up of hundreds of different Christian denominations, a unique atmosphere could be found inside all of the houses of worship in the old city.

This is because they belonged to the same Reformed Church (or Calvinist) denomination, a branch of Protestantism introduced by French reformer Jean Calvin.

Since Calvinism was the state religion in the Netherlands at that time, it was not surprising to find that Batavia was also the home of "the Reformed Church community".

Houses of worship belonging to other religions, like Islamic mosques, Chinese temples and even Catholic churches, were forbidden.

Only after 1749 were other Christian denominations allowed in the city through the establishment of the Lutheran church, another branch of Protestantism introduced by German reformer Martin Luther.

Lutheran churches can be found on Jl. Teh in Kota.

Dutch was the dominant language used in the old churches.

Out of the existing six churches in old Batavia, only two of them -- the Lutheran Church and the Portuguese Church Inside (the wall) -- used non-Dutch languages in their services, namely German and Portuguese.

Unlike in the eastern part of the country where Christianity also became the religion of many local residents, in the country's western part, such as Batavia, Christianity only belonged to outsiders, historian Th. van den End said in his book Ragi Carita, Sejarah Gereja di Indonesia 1500-1860 (Ragi Carita, Church History in Indonesia 1500-1860)

"As traders, the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) did not give priority to evangelism .... They will do that only when it is profitable for them....," he said.

In the beginning, Dutch Christians held religious services at one room of the second City Hall building (1627-1707), which is today the Jakarta Historical Museum, while the congregation waited for the completion of a construction called Oude Hollandse Kerk (Old Dutch Church), which was finished in 1640.

At the same time, there was also a chapel for employees working inside the old castle, the first fortress built by the Dutch, located where Jl. Tongkol area is now.

The old church, which was built on the site of the present Puppet Museum on Jl. Pos Kota, was also called Kruiskerk (Cross Church) because the building's ground plan formed a cross.

In 1732 the church was demolished because it could not contain an Organ which was imported from the Netherlands, Adolf Heuken said in his book Historical Sites of Jakarta.

As a replacement, the Nieuwe Hollandse Kerk (the New Dutch Church) was built in 1736 as the tallest domed building in Batavia with its octagonal shape.

Visiting Dutch Historian Max de Bruijn said the new house of worship was the most important church in the city because it was the place where the Batavia Church Council governed.

"It was also the place where Dutch governor generals attended Sunday services," he said.

Following the Western tradition, the house of worship also became a graveyard. The founder of Batavia, Governor General Jan Pieterszoon Coen, along with 18 other governor generals, was buried there.

The building was cracked due to an earthquake and it was then demolished in 1808 under the instruction of Governor General Herman Willem Daendels, who needed building materials for the new city of Weltevreden.

A unique point about women in the congregations of the Batavia churches was made by de Bruijn in his paper on the Lutheran Church in Batavia.

"With the exception of wives of the members of government, all women were seated in special chairs.... The placement of women in the middle of the church was common in the Protestant churches of this period," he said.

De Bruijn also said that (when attending the services) the women were also accompanied by slaves, who would doggedly follow their masters wherever they went.

"The female slaves would sit on the floor near their masters. One of the main reasons for this was to be able to serve them sirih or betel vine."

Such conditions were not surprising because, according to him, church attendance was primarily a social obligation for the Batavia elite.

However, according to historian Van den End, the number of church members grew continuously so that by 1700 there were about 15,000 Christians. In 1720, the number of people living inside the walled city was 20,000, according to de Bruijn.

Van den End said that in Batavia, a congregation was divided into three groups based on the language they spoke: Europeans made up 40 percent of the total number of Christians, "Black Portuguese" -- Dutch prisoners from India and Sri Lanka who were freed after they abandoned Catholicism and became Protestant -- and Malay.

"In 1621 there was a congregation which conducted its services in Malay. This included people from other areas and Indonesians in Batavia who became Christians," he said.

Both the "Black Portuguese" and Malay congregations held their services at the Portuguese Binnenkerk or Portuguese Church Inside (the wall) built in 1673 where Jl. Kopi now stands today.

It was given the name because there was also a Portuguese Church Outside, the present Sion Church on Jl. Pangeran Jayakarta.