Frederick Van Eyk

1895-1939

Charismatic South African Pentecostal preacher and ‘faith-healer’ Frederick Van Eyk created a sensation when he came to Australia in 1926. He founded the Four Square Pentecostal Church in Fremantle in 1934 and regularly visited Perth and Fremantle, to preach and heal the sick. While some saw him as a powerful preacher others saw him as a charlatan: 

“Van Eyk, when saying a prayer, works himself up into a veritable frenzy. Dramatic gasps and all the artful, well known artifices of humbugs are exploited in his appeal” (reference)

Frederick Bernadas Van Eyk was born in South Africa on 6 June 1895. After a life of gambling, drinking, smoking and profanity he converted to Christianity in Durban and around 1916 became a ‘vigorous’ Apostolic Faith Mission evangelist. Although small in stature, people responded to his strength and energy:

“With arms outstretched, and loud Hallelujahs, the evangelist has kept the bulk of the large crowds highly amused with his acrobatics. Dancing in a circle, and at the conclusion of some of the hymns, during which the converts at his signal, frantically wave their handkerchiefs in a circle over their heads, Van Eyk jumps four feet into the air…” (reference)

Van Eyk was initially invited to Adelaide, South Australia, by three men in the fledgling Pentecostal movement: J. E. Rieschiek, Hines Retchford and ‘Brother’ Stevens. The Pentecostal faith believed in the ‘Second Coming of the Lord Jesus’, and on 9 May 1926 over a 1,000 people attended a ‘baptism by immersion’ in the River Torrens in Adelaide. 

When Van Eyk arrived in Australia, he was accompanied by his wife Cecilia Isabel and four children, Neilsie, Dick, Freddie and Faith. He arrived in Perth, WA. in March 1926, where he first held meetings before going on to Adelaide. News of his ‘divine healing’ drew crowds to his events. His specialty was baptizing converts in a 2 ft deep by 4 ft wide specially constructed tank, on stage. In Adelaide in 1929, he advertised ‘hygienic baptisms’; disinfectant was added to the tub, (heated by kerosene tins of hot water), as women in white nightdress’s entered it. All proceeds in this case, went to the Cessnock Hospital. (reference)

“With unconcealed joy a forlorn looking man at the meeting confirmed the testimony of his wife that since her baptism she had ceased to "nag" at him…” (reference)

Van Eyk, seen as an expert on black and white relationships, was asked to comment on aboriginals. As a missionary he seemed to have some sympathy for the situation of the ‘native’, commenting in 1926:

The native mind is very receptive to the Christian teaching. Unfortunately in the past the natives have been deceived so often by men professing Christianity, when their only object was monetary gain, that they receive a new teacher warily. But when once he has established his good faith they are willing to follow wherever he leads.—F. B. van Eyk. ( reference)

In Perth in August 1927 Van Eyk was warmly received by large crowds- and 48 people were immersed in two separate baptisms at Crawley Baths. While he preached about the Second Coming, world events and divine healing, Van Eyk also took the opportunity to denounce Roman Catholicism as the ‘scarlet-clad mother of harlots’.  He did not flinch when he received impossible requests: in Queensland in May 1927 a man removed his glass eye and asked for the evangelist to pray for a new one. (The Free Flowing Spirit)

In 1928 his wife Cecilia, experienced a breakdown and returned to South Africa for 5 years. While she was away he became friendly with a nurse in Toowoomba- Hilda Kajewski, and soon rumours of their relationship began to split the church. Rotten eggs began to be thrown at him and discontented people tried to break up meetings. Queensland pastors tried to get him to ‘alter his ways’ and bring his wife back, but Van Eyk refused, protesting his integrity.

In July 1929 huge crowds attempted to visit the Strand Theatre in Cessnock to see Van Eyk perform baptisms, with 2000 people unable to gain entrance. There women converts were immersed in a 10 feet long bath- while others threw their arms about in ecstasy. (reference)

It was at this time that Glossolalia, or ‘speaking in tongues’, utterances produced during states of intense religious experience, began to be a unique identifying sign of Pentecostal religion. (reference)  

In Cessnock Van Eyk denounced capitalists (there was a mining strike happening at the time) and denominational churches, which, he said, had failed Christ. He said his converts had decided to build a church to be known as "The Four Square Gospel Church." Clergymen who were formerly  inclined towards Van Eyk's mission became  increasingly unsympathetic. (reference) The Salvation Army had initially welcomed him on the understanding that he promised to hand his converts over to them - but they turned against him  when he retained the converts for his newly founded Pentecostal church. (reference) 
Van Eyk often had hecklers in his crowd and he did not hesitate to throw them out the door:

“The Lord prohibits me from hitting people, but he does not say that I cannot put them out' said Van Eyk with the light of battle in his eyes. "That man's fate will be the fate of a few more if they do not keep quiet." ( reference)

On one occasion after one of his meetings, when he was attacked by a miner, Van Eyk gave his Bible to a man to hold, and gave the miner a thrashing in the street. (reference) On another occasion he prayed for a car- and on the following day, a new car was delivered to him, allegedly a gift of his supporters.

Van Eyk attacked ‘spiritualism’ during the several weeks of his ‘Revival tour’ in Perth in May and June, 1927, where he conducted ‘healing missions’, nightly at the Assembly Hall in Pier Street, Perth. (reference) It was claimed a man who was suffering bronchitis and asthma was ‘completely healed’ (reference) but Van Eyk also drew the crowds with his advertising spiel:

“This one-time Big Game Hunter comes to tell you the sweet old Story of the Cross in his own inimitable way. Hunting wild beasts in the heart of the African Jungle to preaching the Gospel in Perth is a far cry…” ( reference)

In Sydney in 1931, Van Eyk caused an uproar by saying he wanted to ‘save the city from sin before it was too late’ as he baptized 14 people, including one aboriginal youth. (reference) In November 1932 nearly 1500 people attended the Ocean Baths at Newcastle when Van Eyk performed baptisms on 21 converts. ( reference)

In August 1933 after organising a massive publicity stunt at the dock in Sydney (where a La Perouse aboriginal man acted as conductor of the 'Gumleaf' Band) Van Eyk travelled back to South Africa. (reference)

He returned with his wife and family in July 1934. He arrived in Fremantle on the liner Themistocles with three pastors from South Africa including a Mr S. F. Du Plessis who was to be stationed in WA on a ‘great evangelistic mission’ billed as “The Old-time Gospel Preached With Old-time Power.” (reference) (reference)

It was during this visit in 1934 that Van Eyk founded the Fremantle branch of the Elim Four-Square church. Capitalizing on his African experiences meetings at the Protestant Hall on Monday 6th August and at the Fremantle Literary Institute Van Eyk promised:

‘Over 80 slides of native life. From Cannibalism to Christianity. You will hear as well as see…’ ( reference)

Van Eyk visited Fremantle again in November 1935

“The members and friends of the branch in Fremantle are looking forward to a spiritual feast that all will enjoy. After some months the Church has grown from a few to quite respectable congregation.”  (reference)

In 1936 the Fremantle branch of the Elim Four-Square church was in an uproar and stormy meetings were held over the dismissal of the Fremantle pastor Frederick Hammond.  Hammond had been trained as a pastor after being “out of work- with four children to raise”. When he wasn't able to raise the ‘necessary finances’ he was asked to transfer to Bunbury- and he refused to go. Police were called in to clear the meeting at the Literary Institute where members defied the authority of the State Administrator Lieut. Colonel Bentley- but the keys were finally handed over. (reference)

Van Eyk returned to Fremantle in November 1937 to reconcile the Fremantle congregation (and to take his message to Northam and Bunbury). Under the Snowden Brothers the Fremantle church was making progress. (reference)

In the latter part of 1937, The Four Square Gospel Mission moved into 16 High St, the old National Bank Building, in Fremantle, and ran the establishment as its Temple for the next two years. 

In July 1938 Van Eyk placed his wife in the Callan Park Mental Hospital, NSW saying she was ‘mentally unbalanced’. He tried to leave her in the institution when he was invited to go on a campaign in Africa however the authorities wanted to deport both of them. They booked tickets on the Themistocles for South Africa and although Cecilia went on board Fred Van Eyk did not.

He went to Perth for a quick ten day ‘evangelical tour’ and when authorities there refused to give him a passport until after he boarded the boat in Fremantle, he ‘vanished’, saying he would stay indefinitely and that other religious bodies had been sending propaganda against him to the Government. (reference)

Van Eyk soon after returned to South Africa where he obtained a divorce. Hilda Kajewski went to join him and they married. Five months later Frederick and his brother were on a hunting trip where he contracted ‘sleeping sickness’, now known as Trypanosomiasis, caused by parasites transmitted by infected tsetse flies. Without treatment, the disease is fatal. Van Eyk refused medical intervention saying that for over 20 years he had preached divine healing and now he had to trust in the Lord. Some say that this sincerity was proof that he was not a charlatan- but that he really did believe what he preached. ( reference) 

He died 21 December 1939 at the age of 44.

1939 VAN EYK REPORTED DEAD! High priest of bunk and ballyhoo, leather-lunged pastor of mumbo-jumbo, Frederick Van Eyk is reported to be dead. It is declared that he died a few weeks ago in South Africa, while on a safari after wild animals. (reference) 

‘In memoriam’ notices were posted by his followers in the West Australian on the 23 Dec 1940 as a token of lasting remembrance for both Colonel Bentley ( who died in Dec 1937) and Van Eyk. (reference)

By the time he left Australia Van Eyk had started two Pentecostal denominations and established 17 Pentecostal churches. The Church of the Foursquare Gospel in Australia Inc., is the Western Australian branch of the denomination in Australia.

The 1960s and 1970s saw a surge of growth for Pentecostalism in Australia, and the rise of charismatic mega-churches, the most famous of which is Sydney's Hillsong, founded in the 1980s. Australia’s current Prime Minister- Scott Morrison has worshiped at the Pentecostal Horizon Church, a church in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire, since 2007. 

“Soon the band segues to jazzy background music for the entrance of pastor Brad. He bounds onto the stage with a microphone… He throws up a hand in greeting, and when he speaks, he borrows from the Prime Minister's phrasebook. "How good is God tonight?!" (reference)

Much of this material has come from B M Chant’s ‘The Free Flowing Spirit, F. B Van Eyk’, Chapter eight in Barry Chant, The Spirit of Pentecost: origins and development of the Pentecostal Movement in Australia 1870-1939, unpublished Ph D thesis, Macquarie University, 1999. Accessible at www.barrychant.com.

Researched by Paul Wood, written by Jo Darbyshire 2021