Strandvik Church ( no, Strandvik kyrkje) 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 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 ...

Bjørnafjorden Municipality Bjørnafjorden is a fjord in Vestland county, Norway. It runs through the municipalities of Austevoll, Bjørnafjorden, and Tysnes. The large island of Tysnesøya (and many small, surrounding islands such as Reksteren) lie along the south side ...

Vestland Vestland is a county in Norway established on 1 January 2020. The county is located in Western Norway and it is centred around the city of Bergen, Norway's second largest city. The administrative centre of the county is the city of Bergen, where t ...

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 t ...

. It is located in the village of

Strandvik Strandvik is a village in the municipality of Bjørnafjorden in Vestland county, Norway. The village lies on the northern shore of the Bjørnafjorden, about east of Osøyro (across the fjord) and about the same distance southeast of the village ...

. It is one of the churches for the Fusa

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 or m ...

which is part of the

Fana prosti Fana is a borough of the city of Bergen in Vestland county, Norway. The borough makes up the southeastern part of the municipality of Bergen. The borough was once part of the historic municipality of Fana which was incorporated into Bergen in ...

(

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 Bjørgvin The Diocese of Bjørgvin ( no, Bjørgvin bispedømme) is one of the 11 dioceses that make up the Church of Norway. It includes all of the churches located in the county of Vestland in Western Norway. The cathedral city is Bergen, Norway's second ...

. The white, wooden 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 ...

design in 1857 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 ...

Frederik Hannibal Stockfleth. The church seats about 450 people.

History

There has been a church at Strandvik since the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

. The earliest existing historical records of the church date back to the year 1263, but that was not the year of construction. The first church in Strandvik was a wooden

stave church A stave church is a medieval wooden Christian church building once common in north-western Europe. The name derives from the building's structure of post and lintel construction, a type of timber framing where the load-bearing ore-pine posts a ...

that was likely built in the early 13th century. After 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 ...

, the church was described in written records as having towers and a corridor encircling the building. In 1621–1623, the church was in need of some big repairs including fixing the roof and parts of the foundation and supports. The repairs were a temporary fix, however, because the church was still not in great shape and it was in need of replacement. In 1628, the church was torn down to make room for a new

timber-framed Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

on the same site. In 1691, a new spire with a weather vane was installed on top of the tower. In 1725, the church was sold to private owners. In 1853, an agreement was made between the private church owners and the parish that the church owners should pay for the construction of a new church in Strandvik. This new church was designed by Frederik Hannibal Stockfleth and the lead builder was

Johannes Øvsthus Johannes is a Medieval Latin form of the personal name that usually appears as "John" in English language contexts. It is a variant of the Greek and Classical Latin variants (Ιωάννης, ''Ioannes''), itself derived from the Hebrew name '' Yeh ...

. In 1857, a new, much larger church was built just to the north of the old church. After the new church was completed, the old church was torn down. In 1870, the church was purchased from its private owners by the municipality for 2000

speciedaler The rigsdaler specie was a unit of silver currency used in Norway, renamed as the speciedaler in 1816 and used until 1873. Norway used a common reichsthaler currency system shared with Denmark, Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein until 1873 when the go ...

. In 1883, the church was partially remodeled by changing the ceiling inside 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 ...

. Before the rebuilding in 1883, the inside of the church appeared as a "real"

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name ...

with an elevated nave ceiling and lower aisle ceilings on either side. Both nave and aisles then had flat ceilings. During the installation of the nave's barrel vault ceiling in 1883, the basilica character disappeared. Some of the second floor seating galleries were removed during the renovation as well.

References

{{use dmy dates, date=May 2020 Bjørnafjorden Churches in Vestland Long churches in Norway Wooden churches in Norway 19th-century Church of Norway church buildings Churches completed in 1857 13th-century establishments in Norway

History

See also

References