Church of Tornio
The Church of Tornio is a wooden church built between 1684 and 1686 in the Finnish town of Tornio . It is located in the Suensaari district in the center of Tornio. The Church of Tornio is one of the oldest surviving wooden churches in the country and is one of the most important examples of Finnish church architecture of the 17th century.
history
After Tornio received town charter in 1621, the town's first church was consecrated in 1647. But it burned down as early as 1682 after a lightning strike. All that remains of the old church are a silver chalice, a host and a sculpture depicting the crucified Jesus, Mary and Mary Magdalene. The latter is now in the church's sacristy.
Two years later, construction of a new church began a few hundred meters northwest of the site of the old church. The builder of the church was the farmer Matti Härmä from Liminka , who also built the church in Kempele . The new church was consecrated on July 11, 1686 and named after the then Queen of Sweden, Hedwig Eleonora . 1686–1687, also under Härmä, the construction of the free-standing bell stack followed .
In 1736/37 the French Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis used the church tower of Tornio as a measuring point for his degree measurement to determine the size and shape of the earth.
Building description
The church of Tornio is a wooden buttress church . This type of building was predominant in the Ostrobothnian countryside on the west coast of Finland in the 17th century . Stylistically, it is based on the medieval stone churches in Ostrobothnia . The nave has a rectangular plan; the side walls are supported by three pairs of box pillars. The high pitched roof is covered with shingles . There is a sacristy on the north side and an armory on the south side . A slender church tower rises up on the west side, a little to the side there is also a free-standing stack of bells . Based on the model of stone construction, the roof of the church is divided into four vaults . The middle vault and the choir vault are decorated with paintings from the years 1687–1688. The altar is separated from the rest of the church by a wooden rood screen .
Web links
Coordinates: 65 ° 51 ′ 0 ″ N , 24 ° 8 ′ 37 ″ E