ABSTRACT
On Sunday 23 October 1695, the Portuguese Buitenkerk in Batavia was inaugurated with a sermon preached by the principal Dutch Reformed minister Theodorus Zas. The Dutch East India Company had passed a resolution in 1692 ordering the construction of a new church and the first stone had been laid the following year. The service was attended by the governor-general of the Dutch East India Company, Willem van Outhoorn, and his wife together with other prominent officials and their spouses. These probably included the churchwardens, Joan van Hoorn, director-general and later governor-general of the Company, and Joan Lammertse Radder, vice-president of the town’s aldermen.1
