sv, Berghälls kyrka , native_name_lang = Kallion kirkko , image = Kallio_church,_Helsinki_2004-06.jpg , caption = Kallio Church. , coordinates = , location = Kallio,

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...

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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 B ...

, denomination =

Lutheran 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 ...

, previous denomination = , churchmanship = , membership = , attendance = , website = , former name = , bull date = , founded date = , founder = , dedication = , dedicated date = , consecrated date = , cult = , relics = , events = , past bishop = , chaplain = , status = active , functional status = , heritage designation = , designated date = , architect =

Lars Sonck Lars Eliel Sonck (10 August 1870 – 14 March 1956) was a Finnish architect. He graduated from Helsinki Polytechnic Institute in 1894 and immediately won a major design competition for a church in Turku, St Michael's Church, ahead of many esta ...

, architectural type = National Romanticism, Art Nouveau , groundbreaking = July 13, 1908 , completed date = , construction cost = , closed date = , demolished date = , capacity = 1100 , parish = Kallio , diocese =

Diocese of Helsinki The Diocese of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin hiippakunta; sv, Helsingfors stift) is a diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, and the seat of the Bishop of Helsinki. Its cathedral is Helsinki Cathedral. The diocese was established in ...

Kallio Church (

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

: ''Kallion kirkko'',

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 ...

: ''Berghälls kyrka'') is a

church in the Kallio district of

. It was designed by

and represents National Romanticism with Art Nouveau influences. The National Romantic style appears in the use of traditional Finnish materials and in the church's massive, gray granite body, as well as in nature-inspired colours and decorative motifs. Completed in 1912, the church is one of Helsinki's most prominent landmarks. /sup> Its excellent acoustics make it a popular venue for concerts, especially for

organ music The organ repertoire is considered to be the largest and oldest repertory of all musical instruments. Because of the organ's (or pipe organ's) prominence in worship in Western Europe from the Middle Ages on, a significant portion of organ repert ...

History

Construction began on Kallio Church when its

foundation stone The cornerstone (or foundation stone or setting stone) is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation. All other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure. Over tim ...

was laid on July 13, 1908. The church was inaugurated by Bishop Herman Råbergh on September 1, 1912. In 1917, when Finland was gaining its independence, the

Tolstoyan movement The Tolstoyan movement is a social movement based on the philosophical and religious views of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910). Tolstoy's views were formed by rigorous study of the ministry of Jesus, particularly the Sermon on the Mo ...

adopted the church as their base and preached their message of peace there. During the

Second World War 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 opposi ...

there was an air surveillance station in the church tower. Until the 1970s the tower served as a

trig point A triangulation station, also known as a trigonometrical point, and sometimes informally as a trig, is a fixed surveying station, used in geodetic surveying and other surveying projects in its vicinity. The nomenclature varies regionally: they a ...

for land surveying. Kallio Church interior

Description

The church is 65 metres high, and its cross is 94 metres above sea level. The

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 ...

n coastline can be seen from the tower. The church is on a hill, and it forms the northern end point of a 2.5 km long street axis made up of three streets, Kopernikuksenkatu, Siltasaarenkatu, and Unioninkatu. Kallio Church is a

hall church A hall church is a church with a nave and aisles of approximately equal height, often united under a single immense roof. The term was invented in the mid-19th century by Wilhelm Lübke, a pioneering German art historian. In contrast to an archi ...

with a

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building wi ...

. The load-bearing walls are built of red bricks and clad in Finnish

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

. There is seating for 1.100 worshippers. The interior of the church is decorated with Christian symbols such as roses, lilies, palm branches, laurel crowns and pearls to pass on the message of the

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

s. There are also Art Nouveau

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 inside the church. The altarpiece is a wooden

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

‘Tulkaa minun tyköni’ (‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened’) by Hannes Autere, carved in 1956. In the vestibule of the church and in the organ galleries there are four plaster reliefs from

Sigrid af Forselles Sigrid af Forselles (1860—1935) was a Finnish sculptor, notable for being one of the first professional female sculptors of the country. Early life and education Sigrid af Forselles was born to an upper-class family of minor nobility; her f ...

’ five-part series ''Ihmissielun kehitys'' (‘Development of the human soul’)''.'' In the sacristy there's a painting by Verner Thomé, depicting

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 religiou ...

healing a blind man. Paavo Tynell designed the massive brass lamps in 1932. The church textiles currently in use are designed by Raija Rastas. There are seven German bronze bells in the granite tower of the church. Each day at noon and at 6 pm, the

chorale Chorale is the name of several related musical forms originating in the music genre of the Lutheran chorale: * Hymn tune of a Lutheran hymn (e.g. the melody of "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme"), or a tune in a similar format (e.g. one of the th ...

(op.65b) by

Jean Sibelius Jean Sibelius ( ; ; born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius; 8 December 186520 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. He is widely regarded as his country's greatest composer, and his music is often ...

, composed expressly for Kallio Church, is played on four of the bells. The three largest bells ring to announce church services.

Pipe organs

Kallio Church is the only church in Finland to have both a Baroque organ and a French organ from the

Romantic period Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

. The French organ by the Swedish organ maker Åkerman & Lund was made in 1995, and it serves as the main organ of the church. The smaller Baroque organ was built in

Kangasala Kangasala is a city in Finland which is situated about 16 kilometres East of Tampere. The city was founded in 1865 and had a population of people as of . Kangasala covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . Finnish auth ...

, Finland in 1987. Kallio Church organ

Columbarium

columbarium A columbarium (; pl. columbaria) is a structure for the reverential and usually public storage of funerary urns, holding cremated remains of the deceased. The term can also mean the nesting boxes of pigeons. The term comes from the Latin "''colu ...

under the church was completed in 1991. There is room for around 2500

urn An urn is a vase, often with a cover, with a typically narrowed neck above a rounded body and a footed pedestal. Describing a vessel as an "urn", as opposed to a vase or other terms, generally reflects its use rather than any particular shape or ...

s at a time, and the urns can be kept in the columbarium for a fixed period. After that, they can be concealed in a sepulchre, also situated under the church. The columbarium can only be visited when an urn is taken there. Visitors can bring flowers or light candles by the memorial for the departed, which can be found on the back wall of the church, beside the main entrance.

References

{{Authority control Lutheran churches in Helsinki Churches completed in 1912 Lars Sonck buildings Kallio Art Nouveau architecture in Helsinki National Romantic architecture in Finland Art Nouveau church buildings in Finland 1912 establishments in Finland 20th-century churches in Finland 20th-century Lutheran churches