Masi Church ( no, Masi kirke) 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

Kautokeino Municipality Kautokeino ( no, Kautokeino; se, Guovdageaidnu ; fkv, Koutokeino; fi, Koutokeino) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino. Other villages ...

Troms og Finnmark Troms og Finnmark (; sme, Romsa ja Finnmárku ; fkv, Tromssa ja Finmarkku; fi, Tromssa ja Finnmark, lit. Troms and Finnmark in English), is a county in northern Norway that was established on 1 January 2020 as the result of a regional reform. ...

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 Masi. It is one of the churches for the Kautokeino

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 Indre Finnmark prosti ( deanery) in the

Diocese of Nord-Hålogaland Nord-Hålogaland ( no, Nord-Hålogaland bispedømme) is a diocese in the Church of Norway. It covers the Church of Norway churches in Troms og Finnmark county as well as in the territory of Svalbard. The diocese is seated in the city of Trom ...

. The brown, wooden church was built in a

rectangular In Euclidean plane geometry, a rectangle is a quadrilateral with four right angles. It can also be defined as: an equiangular quadrilateral, since equiangular means that all of its angles are equal (360°/4 = 90°); or a parallelogram containin ...

style in 1965 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 ...

Rolf Harlew Jenssen. The church seats about 150 people. Alter Mazi kirke

History

The first chapel in Masi was built in 1729 by Thomas von Westen to serve and evangelize the local Sami people. The first building here was an

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 ...

under the Talvik Church parish. This church was about and its ceiling height was just under . The chapel was closed in 1778. By the 20th century, the ruins of the old chapel had long since disappeared. On 19 July 1927, a royal resolution was passed which authorized the construction of a new chapel in Masi. In 1931, a new wooden church which was designed by Høegh Omdal was completed. The church was consecrated on 11 March 1931 by the Bishop

Eivind Berggrav Eivind Josef Berggrav (25 October 1884 – 14 January 1959) was a Norwegian Lutheran bishop. As primate of the Church of Norway (Norwegian: ''Preses i Bispemøtet i Den norske kirke''), Berggrav became known for his unyielding resistance a ...

. The church was not used very long because near the end of

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 ...

in 1944, the retreating German army burned the church. After the war when there were funds available, the church was rebuilt. It was completed in 1965.

References

{{use dmy dates, date=February 2021 Kautokeino Churches in Finnmark Wooden churches in Norway 20th-century Church of Norway church buildings Churches completed in 1965 1720s establishments in Norway Rectangular churches in Norway

History

See also

References