Sint-Jan de Doper: the largest neo-Byzantine church in the Netherlands
This domed church in the centre of Waalwijk was built between 1923 and 1925 on Byzantine models. You can visit it free of charge from Wednesday to Sunday, and once a month the organ is played in a concert.
Dome upon dome
As you approach Waalwijk, the domes and slender tower of Sint-Jan de Doper (St John the Baptist) are visible from far off. The church was built between 1923 and 1925 to a design by the architect H.W. Valk, and according to the Vrienden van Sint Jan de Doper, the friends’ foundation that looks after it, it is the largest neo-Byzantine church in the Netherlands. Walk around it and you can count nineteen domes if you include the spire; the great dome seems to grow out of the smaller ones. Measured on the outside, the great dome is 41.5 metres high, and the hexagonal tower, modelled on a minaret, rises to 67 metres. The roof needed 20,000 kilos of copper, which turned pale green within a few years. The plates fitted to the great dome in 1992 were given a special treatment and have not oxidised, so the difference in colour is still visible.
The building is full of symbolism. The church stands on a low mound of 8,000 cubic metres of sand, brought in by horse and cart, so that churchgoers would ‘go up to the Lord’. There are five funnel-shaped entrances. The baroque frame around the tower entrance is older than the church itself: it comes from a town house in Breda, probably dates from around 1630, and already framed the entrance to the previous church, demolished in 1923. The tower holds two bells named Sint Crispinus and Sint Crispinianus, after the patron saints of shoemakers and tanners. At the time, Waalwijk was the centre of the Dutch shoe and leather industry.
Arches, bronze and terracotta
Inside, it is the space that strikes you first. The great, slightly oval dome rests on eight heavy piers by way of a ring of reinforced concrete; the steel skeleton that carries it is hidden from view. The octagonal interior appears to be based on San Vitale in Ravenna. Valk deliberately chose a more or less round plan because, to him, it expressed the idea of community. He took the parabola-like catenary arches from the throne room of a sixth-century palace at Ctesiphon, in present-day Iraq. More than two million bricks were used, with occasional bands of green glaze and marble. High up beneath the dome runs a ring of 38 stained-glass windows by Willem Wiegmans, showing sixteen Old Testament prophets.
In the southern apse, the high altar of green and black marble stands beneath a red copper ciborium, a tent-shaped canopy designed by Valk himself. It was a gift for the silver jubilee of the founding parish priest, Van Riel, in 1924. Some see animal hides in the taut copper plates, a reference to the tanneries of Waalwijk. On the tabernacle stands a bronze Calvary group with sharply stylised figures: Mary and the apostle John, in almost identical poses of grief beneath the cross. Along the processional aisles hang the Stations of the Cross by Charles Eyck, fourteen terracotta high reliefs installed from 1940 onwards. Eleven of them were painted at the request of the church council, although Eyck would have preferred to keep the red-brown colour of the clay.
The organ and the concerts
The organ stands in the northern apse. When the church was consecrated in 1925 it had no organ, as the old instrument had been damaged by woodworm. The firm of Pels & Zonen from Alkmaar built a new organ with three manuals and thirty stops, which was first heard in December 1932. During a major restoration in 1998, Pels & Van Leeuwen of Den Bosch enlarged it to 48 stops. According to the foundation, it is the largest instrument in the Langstraat region. The foundation, with more than eighty volunteers, has been organising concerts and lectures in the church since 2014.
Once a month there is an organ concert on a Saturday afternoon and a concert or lecture on a Sunday afternoon. Admission is free, there is no need to book, and a voluntary contribution is asked for afterwards. The programme includes: Saturday 10 October 2026 at 3.45 pm, an organ concert by Hans van Haeften; Sunday 18 October at 2.30 pm, Breda’s Mannenkoor, a male voice choir; Saturday 14 November at 3.45 pm, an organ concert by Niels-Jan van der Hoek; Sunday 22 November at 2.30 pm, the choir Koor Ad Parnassum; Saturday 12 December at 3.45 pm, the brass ensemble Stuiver from Breda with an Advent and Christmas concert; and Sunday 20 December at 2.30 pm, a Christmas concert by Aquavocaal from Drunen.
Stand under the great dome and look up at the ring of stained-glass windows. Then find Charles Eyck’s Stations of the Cross in the processional aisles and compare the three unpainted reliefs with the eleven painted ones.
Before you go
The church is open to visitors free of charge from Wednesday to Sunday, 1.30 pm to 4.30 pm; a voluntary contribution is appreciated. On concert days you can visit until a quarter of an hour before the start. An audio tour of about 30 minutes, in Dutch and English, costs €3; you can reserve tickets in advance on the website or buy them at the desk. A guided tour for groups takes about 75 minutes and costs €5 per person, with a minimum of €30. Since July 2020 the church has been part of Het Grootste Museum van Nederland (the largest museum in the Netherlands), a network of places of worship that are open to visitors. Mass is celebrated every Sunday at 10.30 am.
The church stands on Sint Jansplein, right in the town centre. From the Vredesplein bus station it is about a seven-minute walk. There are paid car parks around the church (€1.10 an hour, free on Sundays). Sint-Jan has no café of its own, but there are plenty of cafés and restaurants on the Markt, close to the church. Het Schoenenkwartier, the museum of leather and shoes, is a few minutes’ walk away.
This text is based on the website of the Vrienden van Sint Jan de Doper foundation, consulted in October 2026. The photographs come from the foundation’s Flickr albums. Opening hours, prices and the concert programme may change; please check vriendensintjanwaalwijk.nl before your visit.