page_title: Holy Corner (Begijnhof Ghent)
section_title: After 1874
hierarchical_section_title: Holy Corner (Begijnhof Ghent) / After 1874
caption_attribution_description: Russian Orthodox Church in Gent Belgium in Holy Corner Redgy Vanhove reyi.vanhove@hogent.be Own Camera
context_page_description: The Holy Corner is the English name for the Oud begijnhof or Old Saint Elisabeth beguinage in Ghent, Belgium. It is one of three beguinages in the city - the other two are the new Saint Elisabeth beguinage in the suburb of Sint-Amandsberg and Our Lady Ter Hooyen in the Lange Violettenstraat. Both Saint Elisabeth beguinages were named after Elisabeth of Hungary, also known as Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia.
context_section_description: After the departure of the beguines, the beguinage became a social housing area. There was less investment in infrastructure and accommodation and the area became a prime example of urban decay.
  However, in the 20th century, some voices started to be heard that clamoured for the preservation of this unique urban site. Thanks to this, both private enterprise and the town of Ghent started to invest more into local housing, and from 1984 on the neighbourhood even began to feel the effects of gentrification. As often, artists were the first to come here: Constant Permeke, Albert Servaes and Frits Van den Berghe all once lived at Van Akenstraat, 7 (but not simultaneously).
  In English, the neighbourhood is commonly known as "Holy Corner". The name was originally coined by the late local Church of England vicar, Cameron Walker, who was of Scottish descent, and who with this name may have hinted at Holy Corner in Edinburgh. At the time, the neighbourhood was the location of four churches of four different nominations: the Roman Catholic Saint Elisabeth Church, which was originally the beguinage church, the Orthodox Church of Saint Andrew, the Protestant Rabot Church and the Saint John's Anglican Church. The four churches share an Ecumenical Whitsun walk. Though the area has been largely gentrified, on Sunday mornings practically every European and African language can be heard in its streets, since many Russians, Greeks, Ukrainians, Romanians, Serbs, Ethiopians, ... come to worship at the Orthodox Church, the Anglican church attracts Africans (and some other Christian foreigners who do not understand Dutch, the vernacular of the other two churches in the neighbourhood) and the Protestant church has Dutch, Africans and some East Europeans among its worshippers. However, in the summer of 2008, the Anglican church moved to a chapel in the neighbouring Theresianenstraat, just outside the Holy Corner, to return in January 2016. At the end of 2015, to offset a big drop in attendance at Roman Catholic churches in Ghent, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Ghent had disaffected a number of Roman Catholic church buildings. The Saint Elisabeth church building was then taken over by the Anglican community, which had in the meantime outgrown its location in the Theresianenstraat. The first fully Anglican church service of the "Saint Elisabeth’s Anglican Church (the Parish of St. John’s)" took place on Sunday, January 24th 2016 (after an ecumenical one on the 17th).
caption: Orthodox Church of Saint-Andrew in the Van Akenstraat
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