Pöide St. Mary's Church ( et, Pöide Maarja kirik) is located on Saaremaa island, in Pöide Commune, Saare County,

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

History

Pöide Maarja kirik, vaade lõunast, SM F 3761 2232 F

The current Pöide Church building is believed to be constructed on the remains of an earlier chapel dating from the 13th century. After the conquest of Saaremaa in 1227, the eastern part of the island belonged to the

Livonian Order The Livonian Order was an autonomous branch of the Teutonic Order, formed in 1237. From 1435 to 1561 it was a member of the Livonian Confederation. History The order was formed from the remnants of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword after the ...

, who built a fortress at Pöide as their headquarters during the second half of the 13th century. This fortress was destroyed by the Saaremaa natives during the wave of uprisings against the occupying forces that took place in Estonia and Saaremaa during the St.George's Night Uprising of 1343. There was a chapel on the southern side of the fortress, and the walls of this chapel today form the central part of Pöide church. Owing to its massive form, it is colloquially named the fortress-church. The building was looted and burnt during

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 opposin ...

and also used as a storage facility. It suffered severe damage in a fire in 1940,Eesti Entsüklopeedia, kd 7. Tallinn: 1994. P. 619. when lightning struck the tower. The large crack in the tower from the lightning can still be seen today.

Cultural heritage

Pöide church has been renovated and reconstructed gradually since 1989. The

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

, stone

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, churches, and other places of worship. They are used particularly in paga ...

, and

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

have been renovated. The main part of the building (including the

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 ...

, roof, and

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are ...

) still awaits renovation. Several big tombstones inside the church are displayed behind glass, showing the importance of the church as a cultural centre for nearby communities during previous centuries. These include the tombstone of a headless knight, Heinrich von Schulmann, a nobleman from nearby

Tumala Tumala is a village in Saaremaa Parish, Saare County in western Estonia. Before the administrative reform in 2017, the village was in Orissaare Parish Orissaare Parish was municipality in Saare County, Estonia. The municipality had a populati ...

estate, who was executed in 1613 (during the Danish reign) 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 ...

for being politically connected with the Swedish authorities.

Congregation

Today, a small Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church congregation is active, with about 30 members. In the summer, church services are held twice a month in the church building. During the winter, the services are held in nearby pastorate. On 28 July 2006 the first Roman Catholic wedding was held in Pöide church since the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

era.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Poide Church Lutheran churches in Estonia 13th-century churches in Estonia Gothic architecture in Estonia Saaremaa Parish Buildings and structures in Saaremaa 13th-century establishments in Estonia Tourist attractions in Saare County Kreis Ösel

History

Cultural heritage

Congregation

See also

References