Rjukan Church ( no, Rjukan 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 Tinn Municipality in

Vestfold og Telemark Vestfold og Telemark (; ) is a county under disestablishment in Norway. The county is the southernmost one of Eastern Norway and consists of two distinct and separate traditional regions: the former counties of Telemark and (most of) Vestfold ...

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 town of

Rjukan Rjukan () is a town and the administrative centre of Tinn municipality in Telemark, Norway. It is situated in Vestfjorddalen, between Møsvatn and Lake Tinn, and got its name after Rjukan Falls west of the town. The Tinn municipality council gra ...

. It is one of the churches for the Rjukan

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 Øvre Telemark prosti ( deanery) in the Diocese of Agder og Telemark. The brown, stone church was built in a

cruciform Cruciform is a term for physical manifestations resembling a common cross or Christian cross. The label can be extended to architectural shapes, biology, art, and design. Cruciform architectural plan Christian churches are commonly describe ...

design in 1915 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 ...

s Carl Berner and Johan Berner. The church seats about 350 people.

History

The village of

began to grow quickly during the early part of the 20th century. In 1911 residents began working towards getting a church built in the village. In 1912, a closed architectural competition for the design of the new church was held with three participants. It was won by the brothers Carl Berner and Jørgen Berner. Originally, it was intended that the church should be built by the village square, but it ended up on the Einungsdalen estate near Ingolfsland. The new church was completed in 1915 and it was consecrated on 21 December 1915. The new church had a cruciform design and it was made out of natural stone. There was a large tower at the entrance on the southwest side. In late-June 1927, there was torrential rain for a couple of weeks in the area. Floods and landslides made the village of Rjukan look like a battlefield, there were fatalities, and the rectory collapsed (but the priest's family had been evacuated) in a landslide that also pushed dirt and mud far up the church walls. On 26 March 1953, the ceiling collapsed inside the church. Fortunately, the church was empty when it happened. The church was then closed for several months while the roof was repaired. In February 1965, while the filming of the movie

The Heroes of Telemark ''The Heroes of Telemark'' is a 1965 British war film directed by Anthony Mann based on the true story of the Norwegian heavy water sabotage during the Second World War from ''Skis Against the Atom'', the memoirs of Norwegian resistance soldi ...

was in progress, the second floor gallery caught fire. It was thought that the fire had been extinguished, but it flared up again after the fire brigade left, and all combustible material inside the church burned, so that only the walls remained. Asbjørn Stein was commissioned as the architect for the reconstruction. The tower was severely heat damaged and had to be largely rebuilt, but otherwise most of the walls were reused, and the church basically got the same exterior. However, the interior was designed quite differently, as they took the opportunity to turn the church into a more modern design with 350 seats. The old design had the church set up in a cruciform manner with the

choir A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which sp ...

on the north

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building wi ...

. In the renovation, the old choir transept was rebuilt into a two-storey section where there is a congregation hall downstairs and a meeting room and kitchen on the second floor. The facility also houses some offices. The remaining part of the old

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 ...

was rebuilt as a more modern-looking long church design with a different east–west orientation. A new main entrance to the building was built on the west end of the new nave. The new church was re- consecrated on 28 April 1968.

Media gallery

Rjukan kirke TRS 070603 060.jpg Rjukan kirke - no-nb digifoto 20160412 00265 bldsa EYDE 5 07B 075 (cropped).jpg Rjukans kirke - no-nb digifoto 20160404 00072 NB NS NM 09948.jpg Rjukan kirke - no-nb digifoto 20151127 00148 NB MIT FNR 14071.jpg, Old interior before 1965.

References

{{use dmy dates, date=December 2022 Tinn Churches in Vestfold og Telemark Cruciform churches in Norway Long churches in Norway Stone churches in Norway 20th-century Church of Norway church buildings Churches completed in 1915 1915 establishments in Norway

History

Media gallery

See also

References