Bruflat Church ( no, Bruflat 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 in

Etnedal Municipality Etnedal is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Valdres. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Bruflat. The municipality is the 216th largest by area out of the 356 ...

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

Bruflat Bruflat is the administrative centre of Etnedal Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The village is located along the river Etna, about to the northest of the village of Bagn and about to the northwest of the village of Dokka. The vi ...

. It is the church for the Bruflat

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

Valdres prosti The list of churches in Hamar is a list of the Church of Norway churches in the Diocese of Hamar which includes all of Innlandet county (plus two municipalities in Viken (county), Viken county) in Norway. The list is divided into several sections ...

( deanery) in the Diocese of Hamar. The brown, wooden 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 1750 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 ...

Svend Tråseth Svend Tråseth (1699—1769) was a Norwegian architect and builder in the Gudbrandsdalen and Valdres areas of Eastern Norway. At that time in Norway, spellings had not been standardized, so his last name is often spelled differently including ...

. The church seats about 217 people.

History

The earliest existing historical records of the church date back to the year 1317, but the church was not built that year. The first church in Bruflat 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 built during the 13th century. This church was located about northwest of the present church. What then happened to this church is not entirely clear, but it seems as if the whole area of Etnedal was almost depopulated and overgrown after the Black Death in 1350. After this time, the church was not used for a long time. 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 ...

, the local people of Etnedal requested permission to build a local church. In 1641, a new church was built at Bruflat, at approximately the same location as the medieval church site. The church was consecrated on 25 June 1641. There is no reliable description of this new chapel, but it is believed that it was a simple, small, wooden

annex chapel A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently. Often a chapel of ease is deliberately bu ...

that was subordinate to the main

Aurdal Church Aurdal Church ( no, Aurdal kirke) is a parish church of the Church of Norway in Nord-Aurdal Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the village of Aurdal. It is the church for the Aurdal parish which is part of the Valdres pro ...

. About 100 years later, the parish determined that a new church was needed. The new church was built a little further down the hill from the old church. There has been great confusion as to date of construction of the new church, but samples of wood indicate that timber was felled from the winter of 1736–1737 to the winter of 1743–1744, so the church was likely built during the mid- to late-1740s. The church was officially consecrated on 24 July 1750. The church was built by

. The church has been rebuilt, repaired, and restored a number of times, including in 1818–1820, 1860, 1909–1912, and 1974–75. The work that was done in 1909–1912 was particularly extensive, which took place on the basis of drawings by Holger Sinding-Larsen. On that occasion, the cross-arms in the west, south, and east were extended. The extension on the east end became a new sacristy. In April 1940, Bruflat Church was left in the line of fire during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, and the church records were all moved to a nearby house for safe keeping, but the house burned down, so the historic church records were lost.

References

{{use dmy dates, date=January 2022 Etnedal Churches in Innlandet Cruciform churches in Norway Wooden churches in Norway 18th-century Church of Norway church buildings Churches completed in 1750 13th-century establishments in Norway

History

See also

References