For centuries the martyrdom of the Antwerp Augustinians, which was due to their Lutheran sympathies, was celebrated only by protestant Christians. Today the Catholics have ended this silence: since 2004 their legacy has not only been remembered in some far-away place but also in their own home, here in the Catholic church of St. Andrew’s, whose origins go back to the Augustinian monks. The text of the remembrance plate reads as follows:

 ‘BlessedUsed of a person who has been beatified. Beatification precedes canonisation and means likewise that the Church recognises that this deceased person has lived a particularly righteous and faithful life. Like a saint, he/she may be venerated (not worshipped). Some beatified people are never canonised, usually because they have only a local significance. are those who are persecuted in the cause of uprightness:

The kingdom of Heaven is theirs.’  (Mth. 5:10)

Here the Augustinians of the Saxon Province established themselves.

In 1513 these monks opened a chapel
A small church that is not a parish church. It may be part of a larger entity such as a hospital, school, or an alms-house, or it may stand alone.
An enclosed part of a church with its own altar.
,

as a starting-point for the building of a monasteryComplex of buildings in which members of a religious order live together. They follow the rule of their founder. The oldest monastic orders are the Carthusians, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians [and their female counterparts]. Note: Benedictines, Premonstratensians, and Cistercians [and their female counterparts] live in abbeys; Jesuits in houses. and of this church.

Here the first Lutheran sermon in Antwerp was held.

Here lived the Augustinians Hendrik Voes and Jan van Essen

who for their Lutheran sympathies

were executed in Brussels on the 1st of July 1523.

In that same year the monastery

was disbanded by order of Margaret of Austria.

In confused and confusing times

they too preached the Word of Christ…

‘Eyn Newes lied wyr heben aan…‘

(‘We break into a new song…’, a song by Martin Luther in honour of his two fellow-brothers and martyrs).