When Apostle John Taylor arrived in France in 1850, he indirectly signaled the introduction of the gospel into Belgium. It was from France that the gospel would be taken to Belgium more than a decade later.
Elder Taylor created the Paris Branch on Dec. 5 of that year and helped translate the French version of the Book of Mormon, which was published in January 1852.Louis Bertrand, one of the eight original members of the Paris Branch, was called to preside over the French Mission in 1859. In 1861, Pres. Bertrand sent a Brother Chaprix to Brussels to open Belgium to missionary work.
While the work stopped in France in 1864 when France's Napoleon III restricted gatherings to no more than 20 people, missionary work in Belgium continued. In 1887, Hungarian Misha Markow was baptized by Elder Ferdinand Hintze near Constantinople, Turkey. In 1888, Brother Markow went to Antwerp, where he met a German named Karl Beckhaus and taught the gospel to his family of six, who shortly afterward were baptized.
Brother Markow requested that three missionaries from the Swiss and German Mission be sent to Belgium. Within two months of the missionaries' arrival, they baptized 80 people referred by the Beckhaus family. Three branches were soon organized in Brussels, Antwerp and Liege and by 1891 the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium became part of the Netherlands Mission.
Elder Jean-Baptiste Ripplinger, a married man with three children, was called to serve a mission in the Netherlands and Belgium in the fall of 1894. Elder Ripplinger was born in 1860 in Paris, France. He became a tailor, joined the Church in Switzerland on June 9, 1885, married a woman he met on ship while immigrating to America and settled in Rexburg, Idaho.
Elder Ripplinger was assigned to labor in Liege, Belgium, and during 1895 and 1896 had baptized two people. On Sept. 27, 1896, a branch was organized in the town of Ougree, which borders Liege on the south. In that year, because he was teaching an influential member of the community, a mob of 500 people threatened to kill Elder Ripplinger and stormed the home where he was staying. Police stepped in and broke up the riot.
Remaining in Liege, Elder Ripplinger baptized 10 more people before he completed his mission in October 1897. He is the grandfather of recently retired Tabernacle Choir conductor Donald Ripplinger, who is currently on a proselyting mission with his wife, Myra, in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Starting in 1914 and for the duration of World War I, Belgium was closed to missionaries. When German soldiers overran Antwerp in October 1914, tides of Belgians fled to Holland. A young Netherlands Mission president and future Presiding Bishop and apostle, LeGrand Richards, witnessed their dire needs and administered what help he could to member and non-member alike. After the war, many Belgian Saints immigrated to America, depleting the strength of the branches in Belgium.
In 1919, Belgium's King Albert came to Salt Lake City with his family and met with President Heber J. Grant, who offered a special prayer for the Belgian people. King Albert was very touched by the kindness of the Saints he encountered and this caused the Church to be better received in Belgium.
Several branches were transferred to the French Mission in 1924 and just a few members remained in Belgium by 1930.
When, during World War II, Germany used Belgium again as a doormat in its second attempt to conquer western Europe, missionaries in the country were recalled. Six branches continued to function during the war.
World War II essentially ended in Belgium when Germany was stopped at the Battle of the Bulge in the Belgian Ardennes. The German failure to reach Allied supply points of Antwerp, Liege and Namur in Belgium seemed to be a last demoralizing factor for the Nazi regime.
In 1946, the French-speaking sector of Belgium was reopened as part of the "Greater French" mission, which covered all of the French-speaking areas of Belgium, France and Switzerland. Four missionaries were sent to Flanders in 1947, but when this Flemish sector of Belgium reopened in 1948, no members were found in Antwerp.
Though there were fewer than 1,000 members in 1963, that is when modern-day Church growth in Belgium began in ernest. The Franco-Belgian Mission was formed that year from the French East Mission.
Chapels in Brussels, Liege and Charleroi were built in 1965-66. The Brussels meetinghouse was rebuilt in 1972 after a devastating fire. Elder James M. Paramore, a current member of the Seventy, served as mission president in the late 1960s.
By 1973, about 3,500 members lived in Belgium and on Feb. 20, 1977, the first stake in the nation, the Belgium Stake, was formed by Elder Thomas S. Monson, then of the Quorum of the Twelve. Belgium's second stake, headquartered in Antwerp, was created Oct. 16, 1994.
Today, membership in Belgium is 6,000. Additional meetinghouses are located in Antwerp, Herstal, Seraing, Namur, Nivelles and Mons. Construction of a second chapel in Charleroi is scheduled to begin next spring.
Sources: Deseret News 1997-98 Church Almanac; Netherlands Amsterdam Mission History; Belgium Brussels Mission History; interview with Nona Ripplinger; Legrand Richards: Beloved Apostle, by Lucile C. Tate.
