Our Lord in the Attic

Take a good look at this house. It seems like any other merchant's home on the canal, and that was exactly the point. Hidden on its upper floors is a complete Catholic church, with an altar, an organ and galleries.

1A faith tolerated but invisible

After the Alteration of 1578, public Catholic worship was banned in Amsterdam. Yet the city was pragmatic: as long as it could not be seen from the street, it was tolerated. That is how the 'hidden churches' came about, chapels inside private houses. The authorities knew where they were; Catholics sometimes paid for that silence.

In 1661 the stocking merchant Jan Hartman bought this house, and between 1661 and 1663 he converted the top three floors, joined to the houses behind, into a church dedicated to Saint Nicholas. The faithful knew it as 'The Hart' or 'The Little Rooster'; its current name, 'Our Lord in the Attic', dates from the 19th century.

Everybody knew it was there; what mattered was that nobody could see it.

One of its most curious details is the pulpit, which is normally hidden inside the altar and pulled out when needed. In 1725 the parish priest tried to buy a neighbouring building to put up a larger church, and the city council stopped him within days: tolerance had its limits.

It has been a museum since 1888, the second oldest in the city after the Rijksmuseum.

2What to look out for

• The unremarkable façade, with no crosses or bell tower.
• The windows of the upper floors: the nave of the church lies behind them.
• The side alley, Heintje Hoekssteeg, along which the complex extends.