Dutch church allowed to ring the bell, but not too loud

What is going on in Tholen?

After a long period of uncertainty, the Reformed congregation started using a new church building on February 24th last year. The congregation belongs to the denomination of the “Restored Reformed Church” (Hersteld Hervormde Kerk, HHK).

In February 2019, the municipality of Tholen granted a building permit for the church. However, that permit included the condition that the chiming of the bells had to meet the national standards for a quiet residential area. “With these standards, the chiming of bells would only be heard near six houses in the area,” said elder Theo Hakvoort last year.

The local church board, therefore, went to the court of Zeeland-West-Brabant, in Middelburg. The judge ruled in favour of the congregation. However, in January 2020, the court annulled the environmental permit at the same time. Both the congregation and the municipality appealed against the ruling to the Council of State in The Hague. The building of the church could then continue, but the congregation and the municipal council did not agree on the number of decibels that the bell could produce.

On April 28th last year, the Council of State made a so-called interim ruling in the matter. In the words of the Council of State: “It ruled that the municipal council may include a regulation about the chiming of bells in the permit, but that the regulation that is now in the permit does not provide clarity about the noise standards that the Reformed congregation must comply with. That is contrary to legal certainty.”

Therefore, the Council of State instructed the municipal authorities to draw up new noise regulations.

The city council did that in October. “The Reformed congregation has not submitted an opinion against this so-called recovery decision,” according to the Council of State.

On Wednesday morning, the administrative law department of the council made a final decision in the case.

What did they say?

In short, if it receives a bell, the Reformed congregation should observe the limits that the municipality of Tholen established in October. From the fact that the church has not submitted an “opinion” against this, the Council of State infers that the church congregation “has no objections to this.”

It also appears from the final judgment that the environmental permit that the municipality of Tholen granted at the time is now final, albeit with an adjustment of the passage about the use of the ringing bell.

Church bells seem to be becoming a problem more often.

That’s true, although much more often, it is not. Famous is the commotion surrounding the Tilburg pastor Harm Schilder from 2007 to 2010. Ultimately, the municipality of Tilburg determined that the volume of the bells of the Margarita Maria church should not exceed 80 decibels. The pastor appealed to the Council of State but was ruled against in July 2011. A somewhat similar issue arose around the Sint-Martinus church in Voorburg last year.

For example, in Germany as well, (early) ringing church bells sometimes evoke complaints. In October 2021, however, a resident of Usingen-Merzhausen (in the federal state of Hesse) appealed in vain to the Frankfurt am Main court: the ringing of bells should also be tolerated in a secular environment, the latter ruled. According to the judge, the noise standards had not been exceeded either.

But don’t we have religious freedom in the Netherlands?

Sure. However, in its interlocutory decision in the Tholen case, the Council of State wrote that “excessive ringing of religious bells” does not fall under this. In addition, according to the Council of State, “an existing situation, in which a church with a clock is already intended or present, must be distinguished from a new situation, which involves a new church building to be built.”

How does the Restored Reformed church in Tholen react to the decision of the Council of State?

Theo Hakvoort said on Wednesday morning: “We are happy with this verdict. The most important thing for us is that the environmental permit is now final. Although we could build our church, we did not have a definitive permit. We do have one now.”

Hakvoort cannot yet say whether there will also be a loud bell. “The base is now there, and space has been reserved in the tower for a ringing bell. No further reactions have been received from the environment of the church on the decision of the municipality of Tholen. We now know, with the guidelines that the municipality has established, where we stand, and that is the most important thing for us.”

This article is an edited translation by CNE.news from an article previously published in Dutch daily Reformatorisch Dagblad on January 19th, 2022.