Generous Givers

He left a considerable amount of money and his house to the church.
According to his will, a pulpit, a baptismal garden and a magistrate’s bench had to be made out of this.

The pulpit, designed by carpenter Jan van der Linden Govertszoon, was made by renowned craftsmen.
The Amsterdam sculptor Asmus Frauen was responsible for the marble bowl and foot. This bowl shows rich sculpture.
Pieter Rokkers, a yellow caster from Amsterdam, made the brass handrail, lectern and candlesticks.
For all the carpentry and woodwork, the Van der Linden carpentry factory took care in collaboration with Erven Hermanus Boogmaker and Gerrit van de Waal.
The beautiful soundboard with crowning is decorated with the coat of arms of the generous giver, Hendricus van der Vught.

Jean Diodati was one of the foreign participants in the Dordrecht Synod. In Dordrecht he stayed with the Walloon preacher Daniel de la Vigne.
He is considered to be one of the founders of the Dordtse Leerregels.

One of his sons, also called Philippe, was also a theologian. He was a pastor at the Walloon congregation in Leiden. After his death, at the age of 39, he was buried in the Grote Kerk in Dordrecht.

Philippe’s youngest son, Jean, born in Leiden, settled as a merchant in Dordrecht. At the age of 39 he and his family left for Batavia, where he joined the United East India Company (VOC).

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His son Philippe, born in 1686 in Dordrecht, followed in the footsteps of his father Jean. He also worked for the VOC.
After his death in 1733, he left all his assets to his sister. She did, however, have to pay out a number of bequests, including a bequest of 15,000 national descendants to the Grote Kerk in Dordrecht. This money had to be spent on an evening meal.
From this bequest the goldsmith from Dordrecht, Dirk Wor, made a golden supper. It is assumed, probably wrongly, that the painter Aert Schouman made the designs. The set consists of four gold cups, one large and two smaller bowls.
The set is very richly decorated and decorated with the coat of arms of Philippe Diodati. On the first Sunday of 1738, the golden Lord’s Supper was inaugurated in the Grote Kerk.

Two silver replicas were made of the remaining money. These were made for use in two other churches in Dordrecht, the Augustijnenkerk and the Nieuwkerk.
After the closure of the Nieuwkerk, the couple of this church was purchased by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

After all the costs for making the tableware were paid, there appeared to be money left. Mayor Van Slingelandt proposed to have a choir screen made of the remaining amount.
The brother-in-law of Philippe Diodati, mr. De Witte van Schooten, gave permission for this. He also made up the budget deficit for the construction of the fence.
In exchange he was offered a vault, right in front of the new choir screen. They also received drawings, made by Aert Schouman, of the supper that had been used earlier. His wife, Johanna Aldegonde Diodati, was buried in this grave in 1758.
The style above the doors of the fence features the coat of arms of the generous giver, Philippe Diodati.

Two silver replicas of the remaining money were made to be used in the Augustijnenkerk and the Nieuwkerk.
The sets were manufactured by the Dordrecht goldsmith, Dirk Wor. The sets are richly decorated and decorated with the coat of arms of Mattheus Coddaeus.
After the Nieuwkerk was closed, the set that was in use at this church was purchased by the Rijksmuseum.

The Stoop family was one of these families. Members of this family were in the town council from the 16th to the 20th century almost without interruption.
In 1909, by order of four Stoop brothers, namely the bankers François and Frederik Cornelis and the directors of the Dordtsche Petroleum Maatschappij Johan Anthony and Adriaan Stoop, three stained glass windows were installed in the Jerusalem Chapel of the Grote Kerk.
It does not seem entirely coincidental that it is precisely in this chapel that the windows are fitted, because the oldest known ancestor in the 15th century was a Jerusalem sailor.
The windows depict three important events in Dordrecht’s history:

• the St Elisabeth Flood (1421)
• the big city fire (1457)
• the surprise of Dordrecht during the Hoekse and Kabeljauwse disputes (1481)

The windows were made by the glazier Jan Schouten (atelier ‘t Prinsenhof, Delft).

In 1931, the windows of the Van Meerdervoortkapel were also fitted with stained-glass windows. This was also a donation from the Stoop family, who had owned the chapel since 1833.
The windows were made by atelier ‘t Prinsenhof and designed by the head designer of this studio, Herman Veldhuis. The central themes of the windows are three representations from the New Testament:

• The birth of Jesus
• the Descent from the cross
• the Resurrection

This family donated a new window for this chapel, which was installed in 1915. These windows were made by atelier ‘t Prinsenhof in Delft, just like the windows in the Jerusalem Chapel and the Van Meerdervoortkapel. The design was however designed by the famous Dutch architect Pierre Cuypers.
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The subject, the confrontation of Saint Pancratius, also known as Saint Pancras, with the Roman emperor Diocletianus is presented in two scenes: on the left he is depicted as a young man and on the right as a martyr.

Jacob Cornelis Overvoorde studied law and state sciences in Leiden and obtained his PhD in 1891. From 1892 to 1901 he was archivist of Dordrecht.

In 1900 he took the initiative for the restoration of the Grote Kerk, because he could no longer see the decay of this monument. He became chairman of the restoration committee. He was also, together with Simon van Gijn and the painter Bas Veth, founder of the Vereniging Oud-Dordrecht.

From 1901 he held the position of city archivist in Leiden. He died in 1930.
In 1976 Dordrecht honoured him by placing the Overvoorde bank in front of the archive building, a design by Carel Weeber and Christina Put-Nijland.

After Overvoorde’s death, his solidarity with Dordrecht was evident in a bequest of 2,000 guilders for a vault painting and a stained-glass window in the St John’s Chapel in the Grote Kerk. The window was made in studio ‘t Prinsenhof by Herman Veldhuis and is dedicated to the eight works of mercy of the Johanniter order:

• To feed the hungry
• To help the wounded
• To visit the sick
• To shelter the homeless
• To promise the gospel
• To visit the imprisoned, or ransom the captive
• To give water to the thirsty
• To defend the right

The so-called Krafft window was placed in 1954 and can be seen in the southern transcept.

From various designs, that of the Groningen painter Johan Dijkstra was chosen. He designed a window for Dordrecht in traditional style. Five historical scenes are depicted in the window.

• The liberation of the Spaniards (1572)
• The Holy Communion in the Grote Kerk with Prince William of Orange (1574)
• Coat-of-arms of those present at the First Free States Assembly (1572)
• The Synod of Dordrecht (1618-19)
• State translation issue (1637)

The Groningen artist Johan Dijkstra himself made the 12-metre-high window.

The Association for the Celebration of Orange Day was originally founded in 1885. By order of the occupying forces, the association was dissolved in 1940. Shortly after the Second World War, the Association ‘Oranjedag’ was re-established.
In 1978, the Orange Day Association was merged into the Central Committee ‘Orange Day’ Dordrecht. Since then, these activities have coordinated around Queen’s/King’s Day and around commemoration of the dead and liberation day.

In the twentieth century the association changed its name to Christian Young Men’s Union (CJMV), later to Christian Youth Union (CJV) and then to Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). However, the Dordrecht department remained called CJMV.
In Dordrecht, Eben-Haëzer left many visible traces. The association is the mother of all kinds of other associations, which first operated as (sub)departments. Eben-Haëzer also took other associations on its wings, such as football club Spartacus, which became mainly known under the name Oranje Wit.
The mother association focused on the original goal, youth work, but over time this proved increasingly difficult to maintain.
The society withdrew itself. In 1997, 135 years after the foundation, a farewell meeting for former members took place. On that occasion also four evangelist signs on the main pillars of the Grote Kerk were unveiled, financed with the remaining capital of the CJMV.

The evangelist signs are placed on the four columns of the celebration (the place where the ship and the transverse transsepts cross). The evangelists are referred to as symbolic beings. The origins of these four beings probably go back to ancient Eastern myths, in which they act as guardians of the four pillars on which the world is founded.

• Matthew as a winged man (also called angel)
• Marcus as a winged lion
• Lucas as winged bovine
• Johannes as winged eagle

The Broere Charitable Foundation manages, among other things, a high-quality art collection.

This fund has donated three stained glass windows by the Leiden artist Teun Hocks. The windows represent the guilds, the guilds to which Dordrecht owes its wealth, but also show the 21st century disposable society.

The windows were installed in 2006 and can be seen in the St. George’s Chapel (Dutch: Sint Joriskapel).