Aastrup Church ( da, Åstrup Kirke), located on the top of a steep hill in the village of Aastrup, southwest of

Stubbekøbing Stubbekøbing () is a town with a population of 2,268 (1 January 2022) ...

Falster Falster () is an island in south-eastern Denmark with an area of and 43,398 inhabitants as of 1 January 2010.

, dates from c. 1200. Built in the Late Romanesque style, it has

fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plast ...

s from the 13th and 15th centuries.

History

The church was dedicated to

St Anne According to Christian apocryphal and Islamic tradition, Saint Anne was the mother of Mary and the maternal grandmother of Jesus. Mary's mother is not named in the canonical gospels. In writing, Anne's name and that of her husband Joachim come ...

although this was probably not its original patron as Anne was not generally known in Denmark until the late

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 ...

. The Crown, which enjoyed clerical appointment rights since before 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 ...

, sold the church in 1767 to the parish priest, C. H. Biering. In 1810, Peter Hersleb Classen, director of

Det Classenske Fideicommis Det Classenske Fideicommis (literally "The Classen Fideicommiss") is a Danish charitable foundation. By testament in 1789 and his codicil of March 23, 1792, the industrialist Major General Johan Frederik Classen left behind his wealth and possess ...

, transferred the church's ownership to the local landowners and in 1919 it became autonomous.Kirsten Weber-Andersen, Otto Norn, Aage Roussell, Gertrud Købke Knudsen, "Tingsted Kirke"
''Danmarks kirker: Maribo amt, Volume 8'', 1951, Nationalmuseet, pages 1345–1358. Retrieved 14 November 2012.

Architecture

The brick

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. ...

and 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-typ ...

both have round arch friezes below the

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

. The south door, partly bricked up, is still in use but the north door, whose remnants were uncovered in 1984, is completely closed. The nave was extended at the end of the 15th century when cross-vaulting replaced the flat ceiling. The remains of the priest's door can be seen on the south wall of the chancel. The east gable contains a rounded Romanesque window while traces of the other Romanesque windows can be seen in the masonry. The tower with stepped gables, built in the

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 ...

period, fills the full width of the nave. The porch dates from the same period."Åstrup kirke"
Nordens kirker. Retrieved 25 November 2012. On the nave's eastern gable there is a relief of two heads and on the chancel's east gable, there is a head above the window. These have given rise to a legend about three virgins who had been to church in Horbelev and were murdered when returning home: one in Horbelev, one in Aastrup and the third in

Grønsund Grønsund is a strait in Denmark separating the island Falster from the smaller islands of Møn and Bogø. Grønsund is also the name of a locality on the northeast coast of Falster from where the ferries to Møn used to operate. Grønsund Fer ...

. The three murderers were the women's brothers who were taken by robbers when they were small children. According to the legend, the three heads in Aastrup are those of the virgins while those on the tower at Horbelev are those of the robbers.

Interior

The Neoclassical

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 ...

from 1838 has a painting of Christ at Emmaus by Fritz Westphal. The pulpit carved in the auricular style by

Jørgen Ringnis Jørgen Ringnis, also known as "Jørgen Billedsnider", (birth unknown, died 1652 in Nakskov) was a Danish woodcarver. He created a number of altarpieces and pulpits in Danish churches, especially on the islands of Lolland and Falster.

(1645) is similar to those in Toreby and Væggerløse. The high

crucifix A crucifix (from Latin ''cruci fixus'' meaning "(one) fixed to a cross") is a cross with an image of Jesus on it, as distinct from a bare cross. The representation of Jesus himself on the cross is referred to in English as the ''corpus'' (La ...

from around 1400 used to hang above the chancel arch but is now above the door to the porch. It depicts a thin figure whose thorn-covered head falls to his right shoulder. The arms are long and thin and the hands unnaturally small and stumpy. The church's limestone font is Late Gothic.

Frescos

Frescos in the chancel and the nave from the late 15th century were rediscovered underneath a whitewash in 1901. They are probably the work of the Elmelunde Master and his workshop, although they also appear to have been influenced by the nearby Brarup workshop. They depict scenes from the

Creation Creation may refer to: Religion *''Creatio ex nihilo'', the concept that matter was created by God out of nothing *Creation myth, a religious story of the origin of the world and how people first came to inhabit it *Creationism, the belief that ...

and the Passion, including Christ bearing his cross, the suicide of Judas, and the rich man and the poor man. In 1943, an older fresco (c. 1275) depicting a Majestas Domini was discovered on the wall above the chancel arch."Aastrup kirke"
Nordens kirker. Retrieved 22 November 2012.

Gallery

File:Nordenskirker Aastedfalst13.jpg, The nave File:Nordenskirker Aastedfalst56.jpg, Fresco: the rich man and the poor man File:Nordenskirker Aastedfalst32.jpg, Fresco: Judas' death by suicide File:Nordenskirker Aastedfalst29.jpg, Fresco: Christ bearing the cross File:Nordenskirker Aastedfalst59.jpg, The font

References

{{coord, 54, 50, 52, N, 12, 05, 03, E, display=title Churches in Falster Church frescos in Denmark Romanesque architecture Lutheran churches converted from Roman Catholicism Churches in the Diocese of Lolland–Falster