The Diocese of Agder og Telemark ( no, Agder og Telemark bispedømme) is a

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associa ...

of the Church of Norway, covering all of

Agder Agder is a county (''fylke'') and traditional region in the southern part of Norway. The county was established on 1 January 2020, when the old Vest-Agder and Aust-Agder counties were merged. Since the early 1900s, the term Sørlandet ("south ...

county and most of

Vestfold og Telemark Vestfold og Telemark (; ) is a county under disestablishment in Norway. The county is the southernmost one of Eastern Norway and consists of two distinct and separate traditional regions: the former counties of Telemark and (most of) Vestfold ...

county in

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 the ...

. The cathedral city is

Kristiansand Kristiansand is a seaside resort city and municipality in Agder county, Norway. The city is the fifth-largest and the municipality the sixth-largest in Norway, with a population of around 112,000 as of January 2020, following the incorporati ...

, Norway's fifth largest city.

Kristiansand Cathedral Kristiansand Cathedral ( no, Kristiansand domkirke) is a cathedral of the Church of Norway in Kristiansand Municipality in Agder county, Norway. It is located in the Kvadraturen area in the central part of the city of Kristiansand. It is the ch ...

serves as the seat of the presiding Bishop. The bishop since 2013 has been

Stein Reinertsen Stein Reinertsen (born 21 January 1960) is a Norwegian Lutheran clergyman who since January 2013 has been bishop in the Diocese of Agder og Telemark of the Church of Norway. Early life and education Stein Reinertsen was born and grew up in O ...

. As of 1 January 2003, there were 347,324 members of the Church of Norway in the diocese.

History

In 1125, the southern part of the Ancient Diocese of Bergen was split off as the

Ancient Diocese of Stavanger The former Catholic Diocese of Stavanger in Norway included the modern counties of Rogaland and Agder together with the regions of Valdres and Hallingdal and the parishes of Eidfjord and Røldal from Hordaland. It existed from the beginning of th ...

. This new diocese stretched from the coast of Haugesund in the west to Gjernestangen between

Risør is a municipality in Agder county, Norway. It is located on the Skagerrak coast in the traditional region of Sørlandet. The administrative centre of Risør municipality is the town of Risør. There are many villages in Risør such as Akland, ...

and

Kragerø Kragerø () is a town and municipality in Vestfold og Telemark county, Norway. It is part of the traditional regions of Grenland and the smaller Vestmar. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Kragerø. The city of Krager� ...

, later the border stretched to

Eidanger Eidanger is a rural parish and former municipality of Porsgrunn, in Telemark County, Norway. History Eidanger was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). It was merged with Porsgrunn on 1 January 1964. The mai ...

in the east. Stavanger was the

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominatio ...

city. During 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 ...

, Norway became a Lutheran nation, establishing the Church of Norway. The diocesan boundaries remained the same. Over time, however, the diocese was reduced in size. The parish of Eidfjord was transferred to the neighboring Diocese of Bjørgvin in 1630. The regions of Valdres and Hallingdal were transferred to the Diocese of Oslo in 1631, but in exchange, the Diocese of Oslo had to give the upper part of

Telemark Telemark is a traditional region, a former county, and a current electoral district in southern Norway. In 2020, Telemark merged with the former county of Vestfold to form the county of Vestfold og Telemark. Telemark borders the traditional ...

and transfer that to the Diocese of Stavanger. In 1682 Christian V, King of Denmark-Norway, issued an order that the Bishop and the Prefect of the Diocese of Stavanger were to be moved to the Christianssand Cathedral, which had been consecrated in 1646 and which the King intended be perfect site for a new cathedral. The citizens of Stavanger protested, with the Prefect and the Bishop refusing to move and ignoring the order. It took two years before Christianssand was established as the new cathedral city. The diocese was renamed Diocese of Christianssand ( no, "Christiansands stift"). On 1 January 1925, the Diocese of Kristiansand was divided and all of the diocese located in Rogaland county was moved to the newly re-established

Diocese of Stavanger The Diocese of Stavanger ( no, Stavanger bispedømme) is a diocese in the Church of Norway. It covers all of Rogaland county in western Norway. The cathedral city is Stavanger, where the Stavanger Cathedral is located. The bishop is Anne Li ...

and the Stavanger Cathedral regained its place as the seat of a bishop. The remainder of the diocese was renamed "Diocese of Agder" and it continued to serve the counties of Aust-Agder,

Vest-Agder Vest-Agder (; "West Agder") was one of 18 counties (''fylker'') in Norway up until 1 January 2020, when it was merged with Aust-Agder to form Agder county. In 2016, there were 182,701 inhabitants, around 3.5% of the total population of Norway. I ...

, and

. In 2005 the diocese was renamed again as the "Diocese of Agder og Telemark" to fully reflect the areas included in the diocese.

Kristiansand Cathedral

is the headquarters of the Diocese of Agder and Telemark and it is the main parish church for the city of

. In 1682, there was a small church built of wood on site in Kristiansand. A new cathedral was built of stone and consecrated by Bishop Hans Munch in 1696, but burned down in 1734. The city's second cathedral was consecrated in 1738 by Bishop Jacob Kærup. This cathedral was destroyed in the city fire of 1880. The present church is the third cathedral in the city and the fourth church in the town square in Kristiansand. The church was built after a drawing by the architect

Henrik Thrap-Meyer Henrik Thrap-Meyer (31 July 1833 – 29 December 1910) was a Norwegian architect. He is most associated with a wide range of significant buildings, including churches and schools. Thrap-Meyer was born in Bergen, Norway. He was the son of Jo ...

. The church is described as

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. The building is long and wide, and the tower is high. The Cathedral has a beautiful wooden ceiling and six beautiful stained glass windows with Biblical themes. In order to exploit the ancient walls of the church that burned in 1880, the altar was placed against the west, while the churches generally tend to have the altar in the east. Building work was completed on 1 February 1885. The church was consecrated on 18 March 1885 with Johan M. Brun as acting bishop.

Structure

The diocese is administratively divided into 9

deaneries 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 ...

spread out over two counties. Each deanery corresponds to one or more

municipalities A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

in the diocese. Each municipality has its own church council ( no, kirkelige fellesråd}) and municipalities are made up of one or more parishes, each of which may contain one or more congregations. See each municipality below for lists of churches and parishes within them.

Bishops

References

External links

Kristiansand Cathedral panorama

Diocese of Agder og Telemark website
''(Norwegian)'' {{authority control Christian organizations established in 1925 Agder og Telemark Districts of Agder Districts of Vestfold og Telemark Organisations based in Kristiansand 1680s establishments in Norway