Sodankylä old church
The Old Church of Sodankylä is a wooden church built in 1689 in the municipality of Sodankylä in Finnish Lapland . The simple building is one of the oldest and best preserved wooden churches in Finland. The Old Church of Sodankylä is just outside the church village , the main town of the municipality, in the midst of an old cemetery near the new church from the year 1859. Since the completion of the New Church uses Lutheran parish Sodankylä the early church only in summer special events.
history
In the 17th century, the Swedish Empire and the Lutheran church administration expanded their influence in the Sami- settled Lapland. The first churches in Kemi-Lappmark (the eastern part of today's Finnish Lapland) were built around 1646 in Kemijärvi and Inari . The inhabitants of the two seed villages Sodankylä and Sompio , located in what is now the municipality of Sodankyläs, from now on visited the church in Kemijärvi, around 100 kilometers away. As early as 1674, the Swedish King Charles XI. to build a church in Sompio. The residents of Sompios and Sodankyläs decided, however, that there was no need for a new church. Eleven years later the Samendörfer Sodankylä, Sompio and Kittilä applied to Johan Tuderus, the pastor of Kemi , for the king to set up a parish in Sodankylä. 1686 commissioned Charles XI. Hans A. Krusen, the governor of the province of Västerbotten , to which Sodankylä also belonged, with the building of a church. Because of the remoteness of Sodankylas, the preparations took two years to complete. On September 23, 1688, Charles XI. finally 900 Kupfertaler from his personal funds for the church building. The point of the mouth at the confluence of the Jeesiöjoki and Kitinen rivers opposite the village of Sodankylä, which at that time was still on the other side of the river, was chosen as the location .
Construction of the Sodankylä Church began either in autumn 1688 or during the following year. There is no certainty about the builder of the church. The initials MM2 and the year 168 (?) Are carved into the front door of the church . Possibly the initials stand for the carpenter Michel Michelsson (Mikko Mikonpoika) from Vuono, a village in Alatornio , who was verifiably involved in the construction of the recently completed church of Tornio . The church was completed in 1689. Sodankylä was initially a chapel parish of the Kemi parish, then from 1747 an independent parish, to which the seed villages Sodankylä, Sompio, Kittilä and Keminkylä (today Pelkosenniemi and Savukoski ) belonged.
In 1859 the stone-built New Church of Sodankylä was completed and has served as the main church of the parish ever since. The now unused Old Church began to fall into disrepair before the historical value was considered and it was decided to preserve the church. The first restoration work was carried out in 1926. During the Lapland War in 1944, the old church remained undamaged, while the surrounding village was burned down by the retreating Wehrmacht troops. Further extensive restorations took place in 1979–80 and 1992–95 under the direction of the Finnish Museum Authority ( Museovirasto ). During the last renovation, the roof was renewed and the outer walls were clad with boards.
Today, vespers are held once a week in the old church during the summer , and it is also used for smaller prayers and weddings.
Building description
Exterior construction
The old church of Sodankylä is very simple. She is in block design built on a stone foundation and consists of a geosteten nave with a rectangular floor plan, to which one in the west a hallway and the eastern area of the north side sacristy are grown. The dimensions of the nave are 12.9 × 8.3 meters. The side walls are 3.85 meters high, the ceiling height is around 7.5 meters. In the middle of the longitudinal walls there is a hollow box pillar that reduces the weight of the roof structure on the connection point of the beams. As a result, the old church of Sodankylä represents the type of pillar church , a type of construction that was widespread in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in the Finnish landscape of Ostrobothnia . From the outside, the walls are clad vertically with natural patinated boards. The gabled roof of the church with wooden roof tiles covered that form by their different form a triangular pattern. A roof ridge and three pennant poles adorn the ridge.
The Old Church of Sodankylä does not have a steeple . Originally there was a free-standing bell stack on the south side of the church , in which the church bells were housed. A first stack of bells was built in the early 18th century after King Charles XI. had already donated a bell in the 1690s. 1748–49 it was replaced by a new, larger stack of bells that offered space for two church bells. After this became dilapidated, a new stack of bells was built again in 1827. After completion of the New Church, the church bells were relocated in its church tower in 1859 and the now redundant bell stack was torn down.
inner space
The interior is closed off by a timber barrel vault from 1703. All surfaces and objects in the interior are carved from wood and unpainted. The altar and pulpit have been preserved in their original form. The choir is separated from the rest of the church by a simple choir screen.
The church's altar panel is titled The Last Supper and was painted by Petter Bergström in 1739 . It shows how Jesus Christ , holding the apostle John in his lap, Judas , who holds a purse in his hand as a sign of betrayal, offers the Lord's Supper. Bergström may have used the altarpiece in the church of Tornio ( Didrik Möllerum , 1701) as a model. The same motif can be found in the altar panels in the churches of Övertorneå and Pudasjärvi, also painted by Petter Bergström .
literature
- Pauli Jokinen: Sodankylän vanha kirkko (= Oulun yliopisto. Historian laitos. Eripainossarja 108). Oulun yliopisto, Oulu 1984, ISBN 951-42-1787-X .
- Lars Pettersson, Marja Terttu Knapas, Tove Riska: Sodankylän kirkot (= Suomen kirkot = Finlands kyrkor. 1: Lapin rovastikunta 1). Museovirasto, Helsinki 1984, ISBN 951-9074-89-9 .
Web links
- Website of the parish of Sodankylä on the Old Church ( Memento from April 21, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) (Finnish)
- Finnish Monument Protection Register 1993: Sodankylän vanha kirkko ympäristöineen (Finnish)
Coordinates: 67 ° 24 ′ 52.5 " N , 26 ° 35 ′ 48.5" E