Saint Martin's Church of Valjala is a

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

church in

Valjala Valjala is a small borough (') in Saare County, Estonia, on the island of Saaremaa. It is the administrative centre of Saaremaa Parish. As of 2011 Census, the settlement's population was 410. The Valjala St. Martin's Church lies in centre of Va ...

, on the island of

Saaremaa Saaremaa is the largest island in Estonia, measuring . The main island of Saare County, it is located in the Baltic Sea, south of Hiiumaa island and west of Muhu island, and belongs to the West Estonian Archipelago. The capital of the island i ...

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 ...

. It is the oldest stone church on Saaremaa and possibly the oldest surviving church in Estonia.

History

13th century

Christianity was brought to Estonia through the

Northern Crusades The Northern Crusades or Baltic Crusades were Christianity and colonialism, Christian colonization and Christianization campaigns undertaken by Catholic Church, Catholic Christian Military order (society), military orders and kingdoms, primarily ...

, and construction of Valjala church started immediately following the

Livonian Crusade The Livonian crusade refers to the various military Christianisation campaigns in medieval Livonia – in what is now Latvia and Estonia – during the Papal -sanctioned Northern Crusades in the 12–13th century. The Livonian crusade was cond ...

, in 1227. The first church was a smaller

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

built near the site of the

Valjala Stronghold The Valjala Stronghold ( la, Castrum Waldia, et, Valjala Maalinn) was a major ringfort on the island of Saaremaa in Estonia. Established in the 12th century, at the time it was the most important Oeselian stronghold. Its surrender in 1227 final ...

. The chapel was later extended and still forms the nucleus of the current church. Remnants from this earliest period of the building include Romanesque fragments of

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

s depicting six of the

apostle An apostle (), in its literal sense, is an emissary, from Ancient Greek ἀπόστολος (''apóstolos''), literally "one who is sent off", from the verb ἀποστέλλειν (''apostéllein''), "to send off". The purpose of such sending ...

s inside the church. In 1240, the church was expanded and it got its present form of a single-nave church. The builders stayed true to Romanesque forms as evidenced by the round-arched portals of the church.

14th-17th centuries

In 1343 the church was damaged during the St. George's Night Uprising. Restoration works and other additions to the church henceforth were more clearly

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

in form. For example, the windows, the vaults of the upper parts of the building, and the

blind arch A blind arch is an arch found in the wall of a building that has been infilled with solid construction and so cannot serve as a passageway, door or window.''A Dictionary of Architecture''; Fleming, John; Honour, Hugh & Pevsner, Nikolaus (1966) T ...

decoration on the west façade are typically pointed. The builders during this time possible came from

Varnhem Abbey Varnhem Abbey ( sv, Varnhems kloster) in Varnhem, Västergötland, Sweden was founded around 1150 by monks of the Cistercian Order from Alvastra Abbey in Östergötland. The Cistercian Order used the same floor plan for all its abbeys, which make ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

. The church was clearly built to be able to function as a refuge in times of troubles, as well as a church. There are rooms above the vaults that are constructed so that they could only be reached using a ladder which could be pulled up. Also, an internal passageway just under the windows on the inside of the walls could be utilised to repel an advancing enemy. During the later part of the 14th century, the church got a new polygonal

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...

. The tower, which was probably not completed until the 17th century, was probably also started during this period. Tombstone fragments of archaic,

trapezoid A quadrilateral with at least one pair of parallel sides is called a trapezoid () in American and Canadian English. In British and other forms of English, it is called a trapezium (). A trapezoid is necessarily a Convex polygon, convex quadri ...

form have been discovered in the walls of the tower, and it is believed that they may stem from pre-Christian times. They are rather unusual in that tombstones of this type have otherwise only been discovered in western Estonia.

18th-20th centuries

The church was damaged during the

Great Northern War The Great Northern War (1700–1721) was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedi ...

. There are two

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

carved

epitaph An epitaph (; ) is a short text honoring a deceased person. Strictly speaking, it refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. Some epitaphs are specified by the person themselves be ...

s in the church, dating from 1664 (in memory of Andreas Fregius) and 1667 (in memory of Gaspar Berg). In 1820, Nommen Lorenzen from

Kuressaare Kuressaare () is a town on Saaremaa island in Estonia. It is the administrative centre of Saaremaa Parish and the capital of Saare County. Kuressaare is the westernmost town in Estonia. The recorded population on 1 January 2018 was 13,276. Th ...

, made the church's present

altarpiece An altarpiece is an artwork such as a painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting o ...

. The church's organ is from 1888 and made by Gustav Normann. The church was again damaged in 1922 when lightning struck the building. The stained glass windows are made by artist Dolores Hoffman and date from the 1970s.

21st century

The organ was refurbished in 2004 by Ago Tint.

Architecture

Exterior

The western facade of the church, decorated with

es and the finely sculpted, originally Romanesque portal is especially noteworthy and quite unique in Estonia. The church walls (1240-1270) are massive and the windows, coupled together, are narrow and tall. Contrasting with this is the

, probably constructed after 1345, with its polygonal form and open character. Both the walls of the nave and the apse are supported by

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (s ...

es. The older parts of the exterior of the church is evidently the product of highly skilled

Central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the area' ...

an master builders, who probably also worked on constructing

Kuressaare Castle Kuressaare Castle ( et, Kuressaare linnus; german: Schloss Arensburg), also Kuressaare Episcopal Castle, ( et, Kuressaare piiskopilinnus), is a castle in Kuressaare on Saaremaa island, in western Estonia. History The earliest written record men ...

, which dates from the same period. The church tower is not original but probably built successively from the 14th to the 16th centuries.

Interior

The interior of the church is characterised by the whitewashed high domed vaults. The

baptismal font A baptismal font is an article of church furniture used for baptism. Aspersion and affusion fonts The fonts of many Christian denominations are for baptisms using a non-immersive method, such as aspersion (sprinkling) or affusion (pouring). ...

is one of the most notable features of the church. It is one of the oldest pieces of carved stonework in Estonia. Scholars believe that it was made for Haapsalu Cathedral but somehow later found its way to Valjala. The font is richly decorated with expressive Romanesque sculptures, similar to what can be found e.g. in the northern portal of

Riga Cathedral Riga Cathedral ( lv, Rīgas Doms; german: Dom zu Riga) formally The Cathedral Church of Saint Mary, is the Evangelical Lutheran cathedral in Riga, Latvia. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Riga. The cathedral is one of the most recognizable l ...

. It is believed that the artist both here and in Riga is the same, probably

Westphalia Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants. The territory of the regio ...

n, master carver.

References

External links

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