St. Ansgar's Church 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

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

Kristiansand Kristiansand is a seaside resort city and municipality in Agder county, Norway. The city is the fifth-largest and the municipality the sixth-largest in Norway, with a population of around 112,000 as of January 2020, following the incorporation ...

, Norway. It is the only Roman Catholic church building in Agder county in Southern Norway. The first church was built in 1936. The current church building is built of red bricks and expanded, after total restoration after the first,

whitewash Whitewash, or calcimine, kalsomine, calsomine, or lime paint is a type of paint made from slaked lime ( calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH)2) or chalk calcium carbonate, (CaCO3), sometimes known as "whiting". Various other additives are sometimes used ...

ed church burned in the 1980s. In addition to church services in Norwegian, it has a

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

in English every Sunday afternoon at 6 p.m.

History

In 1890, the Catholic church in Kristiansand was established and the German Wilhelm Hartmann from

Münster Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state distr ...

was the first

pastor A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and ...

. Just after the church's founding, the

Sisters of St. Joseph The Sisters of St. Joseph, also known as the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, abbreviated CSJ or SSJ, is a Roman Catholic religious congregation of women founded in Le Puy-en-Velay, France, in 1650. This congregation, named for S ...

came to town and bought a property next to the rectory. For nearly 100 years, they were an indispensable support for the fragile new church. During the reconstruction after the major town fire in 1892, they purchased several more properties, and established a Catholic hospital in the town, St Joseph's Hospital, which operated until 1967. The first church was built in 1935 and was consecrated in 1936. The current church was built and expanded on the same plot. Initially, the growing of number of church members was slow. However, the situation is completely different today, because the church is experiencing a strong growth, mainly because the relocation of Catholics of foreign origin have risen sharply.Sankt Ansgar kirke
Norske kirkebygg

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Ansgar's Church Churches in Kristiansand 1890 establishments in Norway Religious organizations established in 1890 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Norway Roman Catholic churches completed in 1936