Stenkyrka Church

The church in Stenkyrka is part of the Stenkyrka parish on the Swedish island of Gotland . It is located in the village of Stenkyrka 22 km north of Visby near the west coast.

According to the Gutasaga , this church was the first to be built in the northern part of Gotland. It was built as a wooden church by Lickajr the Wise. The church in its present form was built in stages in the 13th century. The choir , nave and church tower were built in this order.

The church is richly decorated with medieval paintings, of which the square painting of the arch between the choir and nave from the middle of the 13th century is the oldest. In the tower vault there are marble imitations from the late 13th century. Large parts of the original paintings have been lost. The font in the center of the nave was made by the master Majestatis in the 12th century. The church's early 14th century triumphal cross now hangs on the north wall in the nave, along with images of Mary and John dated 1702. The pews, most of which date from the Danish occupation, received their still existing door paintings in the form of landscape paintings by J. N. Weller in the years 1783–84. In the choir is the tombstone of Licnatus from Stenstu, who lived in the second half of the 12th century. It is the oldest datable gravestone on Gotland (approx. 1400).

The church was restored twice: 1954–55 under the direction of the architect Rolf Bergh and 1979–80 after a fire in the tower, which was caused by arson and mainly caused smoke damage.

A scene of human sacrifices is depicted on a picture stone next to the church .

Aerial view
Stenkyrka Church
Steeple
portal

Interior decoration

Pulpit (late 17th century), pulpit clock (1805/1806)

Sandstone altar from 1688

Paintings with the five wise virgins (18th century)

Baptismal font from the 12th century

Murals

literature

Marita Jonsson, Sven-Olof Lindquist: Gotland cultural guide. Almqvist & Wiksell, Uppsala 1993, ISBN 91-88036-09-X .
Erland Lagerlöf, Gunnar Svahnström: The churches of Gotland. Stein, Kiel 1991, ISBN 3-89392-049-8 .

Web links

Commons : Church of Stenkyrka (page) - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Commons : Church of Stenkyrka (category) - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

guteinfo (Swedish, with pictures)

PaGotland ( Memento from August 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (Swedish)

Orgelanders (Swedish, with pictures)

Webgalleri Gotland (Swedish, with pictures)

Stenkyrka församling (Swedish, parish page)

Building register at Riksantikvarieämbetet (Swedish)

57.793222222222 18.531638888889Coordinates: 57 ° 47 '35.6 " N , 18 ° 31' 53.9" E