The Norwegian Anglican Church, sometimes known as the Whalers Church, and as the Norwegian Lutheran Church (until 2013), and casually as the Grytviken Church, is a church in

Grytviken Grytviken ( ) is a settlement on South Georgia in the South Atlantic and formerly a whaling station and the largest settlement on the island. It is located at the head of King Edward Cove within the larger Cumberland East Bay, considered the b ...

, South Georgia, built in 1913. The church was part of the Church of Norway for a century from 1913 to 2013. It was formally handed over to the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

(national church of England) in 2013, and is now part of the

Anglican Communion The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other ...

Diocese of the Falkland Islands The Parish of the Falkland Islands is an extra-provincial church in the Anglican Communion. In 1869, the "Diocese of the Falkland Isles" with jurisdiction over the rest of South America except for British Guiana was established.Milmine, Obispo Do ...

History and architecture

The

Neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

church was pre-built in

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 ...

and erected in Grytviken by whalers led by

Carl Anton Larsen Carl Anton Larsen (7 August 1860 – 8 December 1924) was a Norwegian-born whaler and Antarctic explorer who made important contributions to the exploration of Antarctica, the most significant being the first discovery of fossils for which ...

around 1912–1913. The church consists of a single

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

leading to a small altar. A small library is attached to the side near the altar. Inside, worshippers (and now visitors) are seated on long wood benches. The floor's dark wood planks contrast with the white walls and ceiling. The church, one of the world's southernmost churches, was consecrated on Christmas Day in 1913. In 1922, a funeral service for

Sir Ernest Shackleton Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of ...

was conducted in the church before his burial amongst 64 others in the church cemetery. The cemetery, located approximately to the south on the other end of Grytviken Harbour, also holds empty graves for lost whalers at sea.

Pastor

The church was led by Kristen Løken, from 1913 to 1914. Løken was born in 1885 in Lillehammer in Norway. He was made Pastor of South Georgia, and arrived in 1912 to take up his post. He was responsible for supervising the building of the church building, and left his church in 1914, and was the only pastor for this church. He died in 1975.

Grytviken Cemetery

The Grytviken Cemetery, associated with the church, is located about away to the south. It predates the church, first accepting whalers' graves before 1902. It holds 64 graves, including nine victims of a 1912 typhoid epidemic,

(1874–1922), the ashes of fellow polar explorer

Frank Wild John Robert Francis Wild (18 April 1873 – 19 August 1939), known as Frank Wild, was an English sailor and explorer. He participated in five expeditions to Antarctica during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, for which he was awar ...

(1873–1939) which were interred in 2011, and Félix Artuso, an Argentinian submarine officer who was killed in the 1982 British recapture of South Georgia from Argentina.Marine killed Argentinian in Falklands war blunder
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Restoration and maintenance

Whalers' Church at Grytviken, South Georgia

In April 1982, during the

invasion of South Georgia The invasion of South Georgia, also known as the Battle of Grytviken or Operation Georgias, took place on 3 April 1982, when Argentine Navy forces seized control of the east coast of South Georgia after overpowering a small group of Royal Marin ...

by Argentinian military forces, members of a British Antarctic Survey team were invited by some Royal Marines to take shelter in the church. After years of abandonment and weathering the harsh elements of the region (the roof was damaged in 1994), the church was renovated by the keepers of

South Georgia Museum The South Georgia Museum is situated in Grytviken, near the administrative centre of the UK overseas territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. Polar explorers Ernest Shackleton and Frank Wild are buried in Grytviken's graveyard. ...

and volunteers in 1996–1998, and now serves for occasional church services and marriage ceremonies.

In popular culture

The church had a cameo appearance in the 2006 animated film ''

Happy Feet ''Happy Feet'' is a 2006 computer-animated jukebox musical comedy film directed, produced, and co-written by George Miller. It stars the voices of Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Hugo Weaving, and ...

''.

References

External links

Grytviken Cemetery
* {{Coord, 54, 16, 48, S, 36, 30, 37, W, display=title, type:landmark_region:GS 20th-century Church of Norway church buildings 20th-century Church of England church buildings Buildings and structures in South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Churches in Antarctica Churches completed in 1913 Norwegian diaspora 1913 establishments in the British Empire 1913 establishments in Antarctica