page_title: St Walburga Church (Antwerp)
section_title: Closing, demolition
hierarchical_section_title: St Walburga Church (Antwerp) / Closing, demolition
context_page_description: The St Walburga Church in Antwerp, Belgium, formerly a parish church, was demolished in 1817.
context_section_description: In 1798 the church fell victim to the French urge to close monasteries and churches, and that same year the Antwerp diocese was abolished. The church was used as a warehouse. The choir, including a covered walkway to Het Steen, was retained for a while but in 1816 the church was sold, and demolished the year after. The last remains of it were destroyed by fire. In the meantime the St. Paul's Church had been designated parish church. The removal of the St. Walburga Church left an open space, now called the Burchtplein, on which a statue to Peter Paul Rubens was placed. When the banks of the Scheldt river were straightened, the square disappeared and the statue was moved to the Groenplaats.
  The church's predella was reused for the main altar of the Antwerp Cathedral; another altar was moved to the Saint Dionysius church in Tilburg, where it became the high altar. In 1936, a new, modernist church with the same name was built by Flor Van Reeth in the Zuid neighborhood of Antwerp.
caption: Ruïnen van de Sint-Walburgiskerk te Antwerpen
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