Ølmheim Church ( no, Ølmheim kyrkje) 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 The Church of Norway ( nb, Den norske kirke, nn, Den norske kyrkja, se, Norgga girku, sma, Nöörjen gærhkoe) is an evangelical Lutheran denomination of Protestant Christianity and by far the largest Christian church in Norway. The church b ...

Sogndal Municipality Sogndal is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland Counties of Norway, county, Norway. It is located on the northern shore of the Sognefjorden in the Districts of Norway, traditional district of Sogn. The village of Hermansv ...

Vestland Vestland is a county in Norway established on 1 January 2020. The county is located in Western Norway and it is centred around the city of Bergen, Norway's second largest city. The administrative centre of the county is the city of Bergen, where t ...

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 t ...

. It is located in the village of Nornes, on the northern shore of the

Sogndalsfjorden Sogndalsfjorden is a fjord in Sogndal Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. The long fjord begins at the mouth of the river Arøyelvi, which flows out of the lake Hafslovatnet. It then flows to the southwest before emptying into the large Sog ...

. It is the church for the Norum

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 or m ...

which is part of the

Sogn prosti Sogn is a traditional district in Western Norway ''(Vestlandet)''. It is located in the county of Vestland, surrounding the Sognefjord, the largest/longest fjord in Norway. The district of Sogn consists of the municipalities of Aurland, Balestra ...

(

deanery A deanery (or decanate) is an ecclesiastical entity in the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the Church of Norway. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or residenc ...

) in the

Diocese of Bjørgvin The Diocese of Bjørgvin ( no, Bjørgvin bispedømme) is one of the 11 dioceses that make up the Church of Norway. It includes all of the churches located in the county of Vestland in Western Norway. The cathedral city is Bergen, Norway's second ...

. The white, wooden church was built in a

long church Church building in Norway began when Christianity was established there around the year 1000. The first buildings may have been post churches erected in the 10th or 11th century, but the evidence is inconclusive. For instance under Urnes Stave C ...

design in 1863 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 ...

Christian Henrik Grosch Christian Heinrich Grosch (21 January 1801 – 4 May 1865) was a Norwegian architect. He was a dominant figure in Norwegian architecture in the first half of the 1800s. Biography Christian Heinrich Grosch was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. H ...

. The church seats about 230 people.

History

The earliest existing historical records of the church date back to the year 1308, but the church was not new that year. The first church here 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 a ...

that was likely built in the 13th century on a site about east of the present church site. Sometime before 1686, the old

choir A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which ...

was torn down and a new

timber-framed Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

choir was built to replace it. The old church was in use until 1700 or 1701 when it burned down. A new

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 described ...

church was built in 1703 to replace it. The new church was built by Askild Tepstad. Over time, the new church was too small for the congregation, so in 1863 a new church was constructed about to the west of the old church. The new building was designed by

and the lead builder was Ole Olson Løken. After the new building was completed, the old church was torn down. On 15 January 1989, lightning struck the tower and it started burning. The fire department was alerted and arrived quickly enough that they had extinguished the fire before the whole church was destroyed. The tower was rebuilt in the autumn of the same year, and it looks the same as before.

Name

Historically, the church had been called Ylmheim Church (or Ølmheim Church), after the name of the nearby farm. However, starting around the year 1840, the church and the parish were named Norum. In 2015, the church was renamed using the historic ''Ølmheim'' name, but the parish name remained as ''Norum''.

References

{{use dmy dates, date=October 2021 Sogndal Churches in Vestland Long churches in Norway Wooden churches in Norway 19th-century Church of Norway church buildings Churches completed in 1863 13th-century establishments in Norway

History

Name

See also

References