Birket Church is located south of the little village of Birket, some northeast of

Nakskov Nakskov is a town in south Denmark. It is situated in Lolland municipality in Region Sjælland on the western coast of the island of Lolland. The town has a population of 12,495 (1 January 2022). To the west is Nakskov Fjord, an inlet from the La ...

on the Danish island of

Lolland Lolland (; formerly spelled ''Laaland'', literally "low land") is the fourth largest island of Denmark, with an area of . Located in the Baltic Sea, it is part of Region Sjælland (Region Zealand). As of 1 January 2022, it has 57,618 inhabitant ...

. Its

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

was originally the nave of the brick

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

church built in 1350."Birket kirke"
''Nordens Kirker''. Retrieved 29 July 2013. The bell tower, which stands apart from the church, is believed to be Denmark's oldest standing wooden structure.
, Birket Lokalhistorisk Arkiv. Retrieved 30 July 2013.

History

Built around 1350, the church is rather younger than many country churches in the area which are typically from the 12th and 13th centuries. Until 1687, it had its own parish priest but it was then annexed to Vesterborg until 1914. After the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

it came under the ownership of the Crown but in 1686 was transferred to Pedr Brandt of

Pederstrup Pederstrup is a historic manor house located north of Nakskov on the Danish island of Lolland. The half-timbered building from 1686 was rebuilt from 1813 to 1822 in the Neoclassical architecture, Neoclassical style by the statesman Christian Dit ...

. The church became independent in 1914.Kirsten Weber-Andersen, Otto Norn, Aage Roussell, Gertrud Købke Knudsen, "Birket Kirke"
''Danmarks kirker: Maribo amt, Volume 8'', 1951, Nationalmuseet, pages 634-649. Retrieved 14 July 2013.

Architecture

The church, built of brick on a fieldstone base, consists of a chancel, a nave and a porch. The chancel with its three-sided eastern gable is all that remains of the original brick building from c. 1350. Around 1500, the original nave was replaced by the nave in the Late Gothic style which stands today. The vaulted ceilings of the nave and chancel were added at the same time. The church's exterior is now plastered over and painted yellow.

Bell Tower

The wooden

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

which stands apart from the church near the main entrance to the churchyard is the best preserved example of its kind in Denmark's country churches and one of the finest Medieval timber structures still standing in Denmark and possibly the oldest. Built on the top of an ancient

burial mound Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...

, it consists of a heavy framework of oak on a fieldstone foundation. The exterior covering of tarred planks has been replaced several times over the years, most recently in 1974."Birket kirke"
''Historisk Atlas''. Retrieved 1 August 2013. It was one of the bell towers studied when the

open-air museum An open-air museum (or open air museum) is a museum that exhibits collections of buildings and artifacts out-of-doors. It is also frequently known as a museum of buildings or a folk museum. Definition Open air is “the unconfined atmosphere� ...

Middelaldercentret Middelaldercentret () is an experimental living history archaeological open-air museum in Denmark, which depicts the middle ages in the Denmark of the late 14th and early 15th centuries. It is located in Sundby Lolland, some 4 km northwest ...

on western Lolland build a bell tower in 2009.

Interior

The church's former

altarpiece An altarpiece is an artwork such as a painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting o ...

, a triptych carved by Benedict Dreyer of

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the stat ...

in the early 16th century, is now in the

National Museum A national museum is a museum maintained and funded by a national government. In many countries it denotes a museum run by the central government, while other museums are run by regional or local governments. In other countries a much greater numb ...

. It has been replaced by a painting from c. 1800 of Christ's burial attributed to Johan Georg Wahl. The

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, access ...

from the second half of the 18th century has been put together from pieces of various origins, some perhaps from an earlier pulpit. The polygonal Gothic

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

, as old as the church itself, is in

Gotland Gotland (, ; ''Gutland'' in Gutnish), also historically spelled Gottland or Gothland (), is Sweden's largest island. It is also a province, county, municipality, and diocese. The province includes the islands of Fårö and Gotska Sandön to the ...

limestone. Its reliefs depict two birds, an eagle, a cock and a fanciful combination of a lion's body, a horse's head and a human face.

Frescos

In 1900,

frescos Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...

depicting a

Gethsemane Gethsemane () is a garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem where, according to the four Gospels of the New Testament, Jesus underwent the agony in the garden and was arrested before his crucifixion. It is a place of great resona ...

scene were discovered in the chancel by

Jacob Kornerup Jacob Kornerup (19 November 1825 – 9 March 1913) was a Danish archeologist and painter who is remembered above all for discovering and restoring medieval frescos in Danish churches.Revelation In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity or other supernatural entity or entities. Background Inspiration – such as that bestowed by God on the ...

References

External links

Parish priests
at the church {{coord, 54, 53, 26, N, 11, 19, 55, E, display=title Churches in Lolland Gothic architecture in Denmark Buildings and structures completed in 1350 Christian bell towers Church frescos in Denmark Lutheran churches converted from Roman Catholicism Churches in the Diocese of Lolland–Falster