Ås Church ( no, Ås kirke or historically, ) is a

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

of the Church of Norway in

Vestre Toten Municipality Vestre Toten is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Toten. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Raufoss. Other villages in the municipality include Bøverbru, Ei ...

Innlandet Innlandet is a county in Norway. It was created on 1 January 2020 with the merger of the old counties of Oppland and Hedmark (the municipalities of Jevnaker and Lunner were transferred to the neighboring county of Viken on the same date). The ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

. It is located in the village of

Bøverbru Bøverbru is a village in Vestre Toten Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The village is located about to the southeast of the village of Reinsvoll and about to the northwest of the village of Kolbu in neighboring Østre Toten Municipal ...

. It is the church for the Ås

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

which is part of the Toten prosti ( deanery) in the Diocese of Hamar. The white, stone church was built in a

cruciform Cruciform is a term for physical manifestations resembling a common cross or Christian cross. The label can be extended to architectural shapes, biology, art, and design. Cruciform architectural plan Christian churches are commonly describe ...

design in 1921 using plans drawn up by the

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Henry Bucher. The church seats about 500 people.

History

The earliest existing historical records of the church date back to the year 1337, but the church was not built that year. The first church in Ås was a wooden

stave church A stave church is a medieval wooden Christian church building once common in north-western Europe. The name derives from the building's structure of post and lintel construction, a type of timber framing where the load-bearing ore-pine posts ar ...

that was likely built during the 13th century. According to an inscription on a wooden plate on the back of the altarpiece, the church must have been closed down and deserted from around 1570 until around 1665. Around 1665, the old church was torn down and a new church was built on the same site. The local parish priest Knud Sevaldsen Bang oversaw the construction of the new wooden long church. The new building was completed around the year 1670. During the 1700s, the church was too small, so two new

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building wi ...

wings were built to the north and south of the old

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

, creating a

floor plan. The church quickly fell into disrepair and during the late 1780s, the church was torn down. In 1788–1789, a new church was built on the same site. This church was a wooden

design with a central tower on the roof over the nave. This new building was consecrated on 9 September 1789. The building was thoroughly restored in the 1860s. On 15 July 1915, the church was struck by lightning and it burned down. Fortunately, some of the interior furnishings were able to be saved from the fire. After the site was cleared, work began on another replacement church. Henry Bucher was hired to design the new

neo-Romanesque Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...

cruciform stone church. This building was consecrated on 9 March 1921. The church has a rather characteristic, compact shape (with relatively short cruciform arms) and a large imposing central tower.

Media gallery

Ås kirke på Bøverbru kirke i aprilsnø.jpg IMG 9853-2 Aas kirke.jpg

References

{{use dmy dates, date=January 2022 Vestre Toten Churches in Innlandet Cruciform churches in Norway Stone churches in Norway 20th-century Church of Norway church buildings Churches completed in 1921 13th-century establishments in Norway

History

Media gallery

See also

References