The Church of St. Lawrence ( fi, Vantaan Pyhän Laurin kirkko; sv, Helsinge kyrka S:t Lars) is a church in

Vantaa Vantaa (; sv, Vanda, ) is a city and municipality in Finland. It is part of the inner core of the Finnish Capital Region along with Helsinki, Espoo, and Kauniainen. With a population of (), Vantaa is the fourth most populated city in Finland ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...

. Dating back to ca. 1450, it is the oldest building in Vantaa and all of

Greater Helsinki Greater Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin seutu, Suur-Helsinki, Swedish: ''Helsingforsregionen'', ''Storhelsingfors'') is the metropolitan area surrounding Helsinki, the capital city of Finland. It includes the smaller Capital Region (''Pääkaupunkiseutu ...

. It is also the main church of the Tikkurila Parish. Along with its surrounding neighborhood, the church is a part of the Helsingin pitäjän kirkonkylä

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivision ...

, which is one of the best preserved historical

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 ...

es in all of Finland. The Church of St. Lawrence was partially destroyed in a fire on 7 May 1893, after which it was reconstructed in a

Gothic Revival 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.

History

The Church of St. Lawrence was built around the year 1450, though records suggest that a wooden equivalent stood in its position as early as 1401. Prior to the

Protestant 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 i ...

and the introduction of

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

into Finland, the church served 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 ...

. It was built as the church of Helsinki Parish, well before

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

, the city, was founded in 1550. The parish village with its church was favorably located on a coastal road between

Turku Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...

and

Vyborg Vyborg (; rus, Вы́борг, links=1, r=Výborg, p=ˈvɨbərk; fi, Viipuri ; sv, Viborg ; german: Wiborg ) is a town in, and the administrative center of, Vyborgsky District in Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It lies on the Karelian Isthmus ...

. A branch of the

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus '' Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus '' Onco ...

-rich

River Vantaa The Vantaa ( fi, Vantaanjoki, ) is a long river in Southern Finland. The river starts from the lake in Hausjärvi and flows into the Gulf of Finland at ' in Helsinki. One of the tributaries of the Vantaa river is Keravanjoki that flows through ...

ran through the village as well.

Burning of 1893

On 7 May 1893, the church was largely destroyed by a

conflagration A conflagration is a large fire. Conflagrations often damage human life, animal life, health, and/or property. A conflagration can begin accidentally, be naturally caused (wildfire), or intentionally created (arson). A very large fire can produc ...

, leaving behind only its stone walls and vaults. Reconstruction was overseen by the renowned Finnish architect Theodor Höijer, who opted to alter the appearance of the church by increasing the sizes of its windows and tending toward a

style. The reconstruction, or as it was referred to, the restoration, was influenced by the cultural context of the late 1800s, during which

Medieval architecture Medieval architecture is architecture common in the Middle Ages, and includes religious, civil, and military buildings. Styles include pre-Romanesque, Romanesque, and Gothic. While most of the surviving medieval architecture is to be seen in ...

was gaining newfound respect in Finland. The church was reopened in 1894, marking the then-believed 400 year anniversary of the building. More recently, the church has been recognized as older, by at least 50 years.

Exterior

The

façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loan word from the French (), which means ' frontage' or ' face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important aspect ...

of the church is reminiscent of other Finnish medieval churches, such as the Porvoo Cathedral. The reason for the similarity is that many churches from that time period in southern Finland were designed by the same person, the anonymous ''Pernajan mestari'', who is presumed to be a German architect. The church has, however, been redesigned to some extent following the fire of 1893, leading to the current design being a mixture of

Medieval 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 ...

and

architecture. The façade features a biblical excerpt (from Psalms 84:10) in

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

: "''En dag i dina gårdar är bättre än eljest de tusende''" ( en, "For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand elsewhere"). The roof of the church, prior to the fire, was a tarred shake wood shingle roof. After the reconstruction, it was made into a copper roof. Vantaa church bell tower

Bell tower

The Church of St. Lawrence has an external

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tow ...

located next to the front of the building. It was completely destroyed in 1893 and rebuilt in a style similar to the

style of the church building. The tower has two bells, and its roof is peaked by a flèche with a

cockerel The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult m ...

weather vane A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ''vane'' comes from the Old English word , m ...

Graveyard

The church is surrounded by a graveyard, which acts as the primary graveyard for the parishes of Vantaa. Up until 1793, the graveyard remained constrained to its original size, until an inspection deemed it too crowded. Since then, it has been regularly expanded to suit the needs of the growing population. The graveyard's current area is about . Its most notable grave is the

mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be cons ...

of Swedish naval commander

Carl Olof Cronstedt Carl Olof Cronstedt the elder (3 October 1756 – 7 April 1820) was a Swedish naval commander responsible for the overwhelming Swedish victory at the Second Battle of Svensksund, one of the largest naval battles in history. He is often better reme ...

. Eddie Boyd, an American

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the ...

pianist, singer and songwriter, best known for his recordings in the early 1950s, is also buried in the graveyard.Eddie Boyd's Grave – Finnish Blues Magazine's Blues News
(in Finnish)

Interior

Prior to the fire of 1893, the church interior remained largely unchanged throughout the centuries. One change that took place was the treating of the inner walls with

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. C ...

; in the Middle Ages, the walls were decorated with Medieval paintings, but by the 18th century, the walls were chalked white. The fire revealed several pre-Reformation paintings on the church vaults, though contemporaries deemed the paintings artistically worthless and "primitive". Before being painted over again, the art historian Emil Nervander made replica paintings of them, which are currently stored by the

Finnish National Board of Antiquities The Finnish Heritage Agency ( fi, Museovirasto, sv, Museiverket), previously known in English as the National Board of Antiquities, preserves Finland's material cultural heritage: collects, studies and distributes knowledge of it. The agency is a ...

. The main

stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

window of the church was completed after the 1893 fire. It depicts

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...

comforting a

pilgrim A pilgrim (from the Latin ''peregrinus'') is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) who is on a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journey (often on foot) to some place of special significance to the adherent of ...

. In 1853, the church received its first

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks' ...

. Though destroyed in 1893, the replacement organ replicated the visual appearance of the original. It was adapted for electrical power in the 1930s. The current organ was built in 1976, though it adapts the front of the 1800s design for visual similarity.

Gallery

References

{{Reflist Medieval architecture Buildings and structures in Vantaa Lutheran churches in Finland Lutheran churches converted from Roman Catholicism Medieval stone churches in Finland