Voss Church ( no, Voss kyrkje, , or ) 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 ...

Voss Municipality Voss () is a municipality and a traditional district in Vestland county, Norway. The administrative center of the municipality is the village of Vossevangen. Other villages include Bolstadøyri, Borstrondi, Evanger, Kvitheim, Mjølfjell, Opphe ...

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

Vossevangen Vossevangen or Voss is the administrative centre of Voss municipality in Vestland county, Norway. Location The village lies on the northeastern shore of the lake Vangsvatnet in the central part of the municipality, about east of the city of Berg ...

. It is the church for the Voss

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

Hardanger og Voss prosti Hardanger is a traditional district in the western part of Norway, dominated by the Hardangerfjord and its inner branches of the Sørfjorden and the Eid Fjord. It consists of the municipalities of Ullensvang, Eidfjord, Ulvik and Kvam, and is l ...

(

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 gray, stone 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 1277 using plans drawn up by an unknown

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 ...

. The church seats about 460 people.

History

The site of the present church may once have been occupied by a

heathen temple A heathen hof or Germanic pagan temple was a temple building of Germanic religion; a few have also been built for use in modern heathenry. The term ''hof'' is taken from Old Norse. Background Etymologically, the Old Norse word ''hof'' is the s ...

. In 1023, King

Olaf Haraldsen Olaf Haraldsen (died ) was a Danish anti-king who ruled Scania for a few years from 1139. He never won control over the rest of Denmark, and he is not included in the list of Danish monarchs used by the Danish monarchy or ''Den Store Danske Encykl ...

visited Vossevangen to convert the people to

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

. Tradition says that he built a large stone cross at the site, which was probably the first Christian place of worship at Voss and this place became the main church for all of '' Hordafylket'' during the Middle Ages. The first church in Voss was a wooden building, possibly a

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 during the 11th century. That church was torn down during the 13th century and a new stone church was built to replace it. In a royal letter dating from December 1271, King

Magnus Lagabøte Magnus Haakonsson ( non, Magnús Hákonarson, no, Magnus Håkonsson, label=Modern Norwegian; 1 (or 3) May 1238 – 9 May 1280) was King of Norway (as Magnus VI) from 1263 to 1280 (junior king from 1257). One of his greatest achievements was the m ...

expressed his satisfaction that the parishioners were going to replace the old wood church with a new stone one, and he urged the continuation and completion of the task. When it was finished in 1277, the church was dedicated to

Saint Michael Michael (; he, מִיכָאֵל, lit=Who is like El od, translit=Mīḵāʾēl; el, Μιχαήλ, translit=Mikhaḗl; la, Michahel; ar, ميخائيل ، مِيكَالَ ، ميكائيل, translit=Mīkāʾīl, Mīkāl, Mīkhāʾīl), also ...

. The new stone church was built to have a rectangular

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 ...

and a narrower, rectangular

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 ...

; a large stone tower above a

church porch A church porch is a room-like structure at a church's main entrance. A porch protects from the weather to some extent. Some porches have an outer door, others a simple gate, and in some cases the outer opening is not closed in any way. The porch ...

on the west end of the nave; and a

sacristy A sacristy, also known as a vestry or preparation room, is a room in Christian churches for the keeping of vestments (such as the alb and chasuble) and other church furnishings, sacred vessels, and parish records. The sacristy is usually located ...

on the north side of the chancel. During the 17th century, the old stone tower was removed and a wooden tower was erected in its place. In 1814, this church served as an

election church An election church ( no, valgkirke) is a term used for approximately 300 churches in Norway that were used as polling stations during the elections to the Norwegian Constituent Assembly at Eidsvoll in 1814. This was Norway's first national election ...

( no, valgkirke). Together with more than 300 other parish churches across Norway, it was a polling station for elections to the 1814

Norwegian Constituent Assembly The Norwegian Constituent Assembly (in Norwegian ''Grunnlovsforsamlingen'', also known as ''Riksforsamlingen'') is the name given to the 1814 constitutional assembly at Eidsvoll in Norway, that adopted the Norwegian Constitution and formalised th ...

which wrote the

Constitution of Norway nb, Kongeriket Norges Grunnlov nn, Kongeriket Noregs Grunnlov , jurisdiction =Kingdom of Norway , date_created =10 April - 16 May 1814 , date_ratified =16 May 1814 , system =Constitutional monarchy , b ...

. This was Norway's first national elections. Each

church 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 ...

was a constituency that elected people called "electors" who later met together in each county to elect the representatives for the assembly that was to meet in

Eidsvoll Eidsvoll (; sometimes written as ''Eidsvold'') is a municipality in Akershus in Viken county, Norway. It is part of the Romerike traditional region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Sundet. General information E ...

later that year. During the 1870s, a major renovation was carried out under the leadership of the architect

Christian Christie Eilert Christian Brodtkorb Christie (24 December 1832 – 13 September 1906) was a Norwegian architect. Personal life He was born in Bergen as a son of customs officer Werner Hosewinckel Christie (1785–1872) and Hansine Langsted (1802–1864) ...

. This included new, larger windows, new paint, and other improvements. These changes gave the church a

neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style and after they were completed, led to much dissatisfaction among the residents of Voss. At this time, the church was described as having a

, a

to the east of the nave, and a

on the west end of the nave. A new round of restoration work was implemented starting in 1920 under the direction of

Georg Greve Georg C. F. Greve (born 10 March 1973 in Helgoland, Germany) is a software developer, physicist, author and currently co-founder and president at Vereign. He has been working on technology politics since he founded the Free Software Foundation ...

. The work carried on through the 1920s and 1930s before being interrupted by

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 bad economic times. These renovations included restoring the more original shape of the windows and bringing the whole church decor back to a pre-

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 ...

look. The renovations continued after the war in the late-1940s and finally finishing in 1953, this time under the direction of the architect Georg Fischer.

Media gallery

Exterior

Vangskyrkja.jpg Voss - Vangskyrkja sett fra Uttrågata.jpg Voss Church (Voss kirke kyrkje, Vangskyrkja), medieval stone church 1277, Vossevangen, Norway, snow, etc. DSC00492.jpg Voss - Vangskyrkja sett nedenfra.jpg Brynjulv Bergslien Nils Bergslien Knut Bergslien Monument Vangskyrkja 1928 Bergsliplassen Voss Norway 2016-10-25 park 05.jpg Voss Church (Voss kirke-kyrkje, Vangskyrkja) 13th-c stone church, Voss, Norway 2016-10-25 -04- front.jpg Voss Church (Voss kirke-kyrkje, Vangskyrkja) 13th-c stone church, Voss, Norway 2016-10-25 -05- front door portal, stone wall, stained glass window.jpg Voss Church (Voss kirke-kyrkje, Vangskyrkja) 13th-c stone church, Voss, Norway 2016-10-25 -11- back eastern wall.jpg Voss Church medieval 13 c., by night, snow (Voss kirke Vangskyrkja i kveldsmørke, snø), Vossevangen, Voss, Norway 2019-11-20 DSC00986.jpg

Interior

Voss kyrkje interioer.jpg, Interior of Voss Church Voss kyrkje orgel.jpg, Voss Church organ Voss kyrkje preikestol.jpg, Voss Church pulpit Voss kyrkje himling i skipet 1.jpg, Voss Church ceiling

References

{{use dmy dates, date=May 2020 Voss Churches in Vestland Long churches in Norway Stone churches in Norway 13th-century churches in Norway Churches completed in the 1270s 11th-century establishments in Norway Norwegian election church

History

Media gallery

Exterior

Interior

See also

References