Ogna Church ( no, Ogna kirke) is a parish church of the

Church of Norway The Church of Norway ( nb, Den norske kirke, nn, Den norske kyrkja, se, Norgga girku, sma, Nöörjen gærhkoe) is an evangelical Lutheran denomination of Protestant Christianity and by far the largest Christian church in Norway. The church b ...

Hå Municipality Hå is a municipality in Rogaland county, Norway. It is the southernmost municipality in the traditional district of Jæren. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Varhaug. Other villages in Hå include Brusand, Hæen, ...

Rogaland Rogaland () is a Counties of Norway, county in Western Norway, bordering the North Sea to the west and the counties of Vestland to the north, Vestfold og Telemark to the east and Agder to the east and southeast. In 2020, it had a population of 47 ...

county, Norway. It is located in the village of Ogna. It is the church for the Ogna parish which is part of the Jæren prosti (

deanery A deanery (or decanate) is an ecclesiastical entity in the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the Church of Norway. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or residenc ...

) in the

Diocese of Stavanger The Diocese of Stavanger ( no, Stavanger bispedømme) is a diocese in the Church of Norway. It covers all of Rogaland county in western Norway. The cathedral city is Stavanger, where the Stavanger Cathedral is located. The bishop is Anne Li ...

. The white, stone church was built in a

long church Church building in Norway began when Christianity was established there around the year 1000. The first buildings may have been post churches erected in the 10th or 11th century, but the evidence is inconclusive. For instance under Urnes Stave C ...

style in 1995 using designs by the architectural firm ''Torsvik og Thesen''. The church seats about 300 people.

History

The earliest existing historical records of the church date back to the year 1347, but the church was likely built in the middle of the 13th century around the year 1250. The medieval stone church had a rectangular floor plan that did not get narrower for the choir. It had one window on the south side and two windows on the north side. In 1814, this church served as an election church ( no, valgkirke). Together with more than 300 other parish churches across Norway, it was a polling station for elections to the 1814

Norwegian Constituent Assembly The Norwegian Constituent Assembly (in Norwegian ''Grunnlovsforsamlingen'', also known as ''Riksforsamlingen'') is the name given to the 1814 constitutional assembly at Eidsvoll in Norway, that adopted the Norwegian Constitution and formalised th ...

which wrote the

Constitution of Norway nb, Kongeriket Norges Grunnlov nn, Kongeriket Noregs Grunnlov , jurisdiction =Kingdom of Norway , date_created =10 April - 16 May 1814 , date_ratified =16 May 1814 , system =Constitutional monarchy , b ...

. This was Norway's first national elections. Each church parish was a constituency that elected people called "electors" who later met together in each county to elect the representatives for the assembly that was to meet in Eidsvoll later that year. In 1840, the church was extended to the east with a new timber-framed choir, at the same time as the 17th century porch was replaced with a wooden tower. On 13 November 1991, the church caught fire and was totally ruined. The newly rebuilt church was

consecrate Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word ''consecration'' literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different grou ...

d on 5 June 1995.

Media gallery

Ogna kirke T223 01 0132.jpg, Old church (before 1991) Ogna kirke.jpg, Present church

References

{{use dmy dates, date=September 2020 Hå Churches in Rogaland Stone churches in Norway 20th-century Church of Norway church buildings Churches completed in 1995 13th-century establishments in Norway Norwegian election church

History

Media gallery

See also

References