I was lucky enough to visit Our Lord in the Attic Church

"With its elegant gray-and-white facade and spout gable, the Museum Amstelkring or Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder ("Our Lord in the Attic") Church appears to be just another canal house, and on the lower floors it is.

The attic, however, contains something unique: the only surviving schuilkerken (clandestine church) that dates from the Reformation, when open worship by Catholics was outlawed in Amsterdam.

In 1661, a rich Catholic merchant named Jan Hartman bought this large canal house and built a Catholic church right into the top three floors. He lived with his family on the other levels (there's something like seven floors total).

Since the Oude Kerk was relieved of its original patron, St. Nicholas, when it was de-catholicized, this became the church dedicated to him until the Sint Nicolaaskerk was built.

The chapel itself is a triumph of Dutch classicist taste, with magnificent marble columns, gilded capitals, a colored-marble altar, and the Baptism of Christ (1716) painting by Jacob de Wit presiding over all.

Services and weddings are still offered here, so consider attending a Sunday service in this, one of Amsterdam's most beautiful houses of worship.

The grandeur continues throughout the house, which was renovated by Jan Hartan between 1661 and 1663. Even the kitchen and chaplain bedroom remain furnished in the style of the age, and the drawing room, or sael, looks as if it were plucked from a Vermeer painting. With its gold chandelier and Solomonic columns, it's one of the most impressive 17th-century rooms left in Amsterdam.

Besides boasting other canvases by Thomas de Keyser, Jan Wynants, and Abraham de Vries, the house also displays impressive collections of church silver and sculptures."

This hidden church is called Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder, or the "Church of Our Lord in the Attic" and is located smack in the middle of the Red Light District.  Although it's quite seedy now, this was once the richest part of Amsterdam, and its canal houses are still the most impressive.

The hidden church from the street

Stairs leading to the attic

The chaplain's hidden bedroom 

The church

The altar

The altar close up

 

The altar high up