Holmen Church (''Holmen Kirke'') is the principal parish church for Sigdal municipality in the

Diocese of Tunsberg Tunsberg is a diocese of the Church of Norway. It includes parishes located within the counties of Vestfold and Buskerud, with the cathedral located in Tønsberg. The Diocese of Tunsberg consists of the cathedral deanery and 9 rural deaneries. Hi ...

. It is located at

Prestfoss Prestfoss is the administrative center of Sigdal municipality in Buskerud, Norway. Highway Fv287 passes through Prestfoss. Both Fv132 and Fv133 start from here. Summary The population of Pressfoss as of 2005 was 465. Prestfoss is located 1.5 ho ...

Sigdal Sigdal is a municipality in Viken county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Prestfoss. The municipality of Sigdal was established on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). The area of Krødsherad was sepa ...

municipality,

Viken county Viken may refer to: *Viken, Scandinavia, a historical region *Viken (county), a Norwegian county established in 2020 *Viken, Sweden, a bimunicipal locality in Skåne County, Sweden *Viken (lake), a lake in Sweden, part of the part of the Göta cana ...

, Norway. Holmen Church is situated on a rocky mound with deciduous forest on the north side of the river

Simoa Simoa is the name of a river which flows through the municipalities of Sigdal and Modum in Buskerud County, Norway. Location The Simoa river runs from Lake Soneren through the municipality of Sigdal in a south-easterly course until it flows into ...

. Access to the church is via Fv133 and Rv287.

History

The cruciform church, which seats 750, was constructed of wood. It was built on the basis of drawings made by

Gustav Adolph Lammers Gustav Adolph Lammers (26 May 1802 – 2 May 1878) was a Norwegian priest, architect, artist and member of parliament. He founded the country's first dissenter congregation, the first church to officially break away from the Church of Norway. Bio ...

(1802–1878) based upon his designs for Bamble Church in

Vestfold og Telemark Vestfold og Telemark (; ) is a county under disestablishment in Norway. The county is the southernmost one of Eastern Norway and consists of two distinct and separate traditional regions: the former counties of Telemark and (most of) Vestfold. T ...

. Holmen Church was dedicated on November 9, 1853 by

Jens Lauritz Arup Jens Lauritz Arup (20 April 1793 – 9 April 1874) was a Norwegian bishop and politician. He was born at Kristiansand in Vest-Agder, Norway. His father was a sexton and a school teacher. In 1811 Arup was sent to Copenhagen to study, but ...

Bishop of Oslo Oslo bishopric is the Church of Norway's bishopric for the municipalities of Oslo, Asker and Bærum. It is one of Norway's five traditional bishoprics and was founded around the year 1070. History Oslo was established as a diocese in 1068. It w ...

. The closing hymn was written by the resident chaplain at Olberg Church in

Krødsherad Krødsherad (''Krødsherad kommune'') is a municipality in Viken county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Noresund. The municipality of Krødsherad was established when it was separated from the municipality ...

Jørgen Moe Jørgen Engebretsen Moe (22 April 1813–27 March 1882) was a Norwegian folklorist, bishop, poet, and author. He is best known for the ''Norske Folkeeventyr'', a collection of Norwegian folk tales which he edited in collaboration with Peter ...

, later Bishop in the

Diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, pro ...

Agder Agder is a county (''fylke'') and traditional region in the southern part of Norway. The county was established on 1 January 2020, when the old Vest-Agder and Aust-Agder counties were merged. Since the early 1900s, the term Sørlandet ("south ...

. Holmen Church was built as a replacement for the former Holmen Stave Church (''Holmen gamle kirkested'') which was demolished in 1855. The pulpit and baptismal font from the

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 ...

are used in Holmen Church. The altarpiece was painted by

Axel Ender Axel Hjalmar Ender (14 September 1853- 10 September 1920) was a Norwegian painter and sculptor, remembered primarily for his genre painting . Biography Ender was born to a farming family at Asker in Akershus, Norway. He began his art studies f ...

(1853-1920) and dates from 1877. It features the

Crucifixion of Jesus The crucifixion and death of Jesus occurred in 1st-century Judea, most likely in AD 30 or AD 33. It is described in the four canonical gospels, referred to in the New Testament epistles, attested to by other ancient sources, and consid ...

. Two bells in the tower are both cast by O. Olsen & Søn klokkestøperi in

Tønsberg Tønsberg , historically Tunsberg, is a city and municipality in Vestfold og Telemark county, eastern Norway, located around south-southwest of Oslo on the western coast of the Oslofjord near its mouth onto the Skagerrak. The administrative ce ...

. They date from 1853 and 1856. The organ is from Hammarbergs Orgelbyggeri and was built in 1984.

References

Other Sources

*Skatvedt, Thormod (1914) ''Sigdal's Main Church'' (translated by Rosella Goettelman in "Sigdalslag". February, 2010. Volume 30, Issue 1)

External links

Holmen kirke
{{Coord, 60, 02, N, 9, 38, E, region:NO_type:city, display=title Sigdal Churches in Viken Churches completed in 1853 19th-century Church of Norway church buildings Cruciform churches in Norway Wooden churches in Norway