The Dutch Reformed Church (in Dutch: Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk or NHK) was a Reformed Christian denomination in the Netherlands. Growing out of the Roman Catholic Church, it came into being the 1570s and lasted until 2004, the year it merged with the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands to form the Protestant Church in the Netherlands. At the time of the merger, the Church had 2 million members organised in 1,350 congregations. A minority of members of the Church chose not to participate in the merger. These former members re-organized as the Restored Reformed Church.
It was one of the many local churches reconstituted across Europe during the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. While the Dutch Reformed Church was based in the Netherlands, other churches holding similar theological views were founded in France, Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, England, and Scotland. The theology and practice of the Dutch Reformed Church, and its sister churches in the countries named, were based on the teachings of John Calvin and the many other Reformers of his time.
Read more about Dutch Reformed Church: History
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“Too nice is neighbor’s fool.”
—Common Dutch saying, trans by Johanna C. Prins.
“To what a bad choice is many a worthy woman betrayed, by that false and inconsiderate notion, That a reformed rake makes the best husband!”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
“Is it possible that I am not alone in believing that in the dispute between Galileo and the Church, the Church was right and the centre of man’s universe is the earth?”
—Stephen Vizinczey (b. 1933)