Hornnes Church ( no, Hornnes 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

Evje og Hornnes Municipality Evje og Hornnes is a municipality in Agder county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Setesdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Evje. Other villages in the municipality include Åneland, Dåsnesm ...

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 ...

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

Hornnes Hornnes is a former municipality in the old Aust-Agder county in Norway. Hornnes was located in what is now the present-day municipality of Evje og Hornnes in the traditional district of Setesdal in Agder county. The municipality of Hornnes e ...

. It is one of the churches for the Evje og Hornnes

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

Otredal prosti This list of churches in Agder og Telemark is a list of the Church of Norway churches in the Diocese of Agder og Telemark in Agder and Vestfold og Telemark counties in southern Norway. The diocese is based at the Kristiansand Cathedral in the c ...

( deanery) in the Diocese of Agder og Telemark. The white, wooden church was built in a

octagonal In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, w ...

design in 1828 by Leg Askildsen Hallingskaar, a builder from Laudal who was 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 ...

Lars Larsen Forsæth (based on the same plans for Klæbu Church). The church seats about 300 people. The church has changed little since the time of construction. The interior is symmetrical with the pulpit in the central axis in front of the altar, following the model of the Christiansborg Castle Church in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

History

The earliest existing historical records of the church date back to the year 1328, but the old

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 ...

may have been built between the years 1150 and 1200. That church was located slightly to the west of the present church site (where the road is located today). There is an old clay baptismal font in the church that dates back to

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

times, but it hasn't been used in over 400 years. In the early 1800s, the old church was painted red. Over time, the old stave church had fallen into disrepair and was in poor condition. In 1828, the old church was torn down and a new church was built slightly east of the old church site. The builder was Leg Askildsen Hallingskaar from Laudal who was using plans drawn up by the

Lars Larsen Forsæth. These were plans that had been used for the Klæbu Church near

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, and ...

. The new building was consecrated on 22 June 1828 by the local provost, Paul Brodahl Larsen, who was based at

Evje Church Evje Church ( no, Evje kirke) is a parish church of the Church of Norway in Evje og Hornnes Municipality in Agder county, Norway. It is located at the north end of the Evje (village), village of Evje. It is one of the churches for the Evje og Horn ...

. The church's builder was Leg Askildsen Hallingskaar who carved his name into a brand new baptismal font which he gifted to the church. After the church was built, there was some unhappiness with the roofline and steeple. It was said that the steeple tower was skewed because the original builder did not follow the plans correctly. So, the parish hired

Anders Thorsen Syrtveit Anders Thorsen Syrtveit, also known as Anders Thorson Syrtveit and Anders Thorsen Solberg, (born 1778 in Iveland, died 1857 in Evje) was a Norwegian builder and architect. Syrtveit also went by the name "Anders kirkebygger" () and is especially k ...

to rebuild the those parts of the church. This church was used as a model church, and after it was built, there were ten more

churches built in the Setesdalen valley and inner parts of

Media gallery

FV310 Hornes kirke.JPG Hornes kirke.JPG Hornnes kirke crop.jpg Hornnes kirke, Hornnes kyrkje, Aust-Agder - Riksantikvaren-T199 01 0051.jpg Hornnes kirke, Hornnes kyrkje, Aust-Agder - Riksantikvaren-T199 01 0054.jpg Evje og Hornnes IMG 7515 hornnes kirke rk 84634.JPG

References

{{use dmy dates, date=January 2021 Evje og Hornnes Churches in Agder Wooden churches in Norway Octagonal churches in Norway 19th-century Church of Norway church buildings Churches completed in 1828 12th-century establishments in Norway

History

Media gallery

See also

References