Årdal Church () is a

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), 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 com ...

of the

Church of Norway The Church of Norway (, , , ) is an Lutheranism, evangelical Lutheran denomination of Protestant Christianity and by far the largest Christian church in Norway. Christianity became the state religion of Norway around 1020, and was established a ...

in Bygland Municipality in

Agder Agder is a counties of Norway, county () and districts of Norway, traditional region in the southern part of Norway and is coextensive with the Southern Norway region. The county was established on 1 January 2020, when the old Vest-Agder and Au ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. It is located in the village of Grendi, just west of the

Norwegian National Road 9 Norwegian National Road 9 (, ) is often called the ''Setesdal Road'' () and it is the main thoroughfare through the Setesdalen valley. It runs from the city of Kristiansand in the southern coast of Norway, through the Torridal and Setesdal v ...

, on the shore of the

Byglandsfjorden Byglandsfjorden is a lake in Agder county, Norway. The lake lies on the river Otra, primarily in the municipality of Bygland, but the far southern tip of the lake extends into the neighboring municipality of Evje og Hornnes. The river flows ou ...

. It is one of the churches for the Bygland og Årdal

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

which is part of the Otredal prosti (

deanery A deanery (or decanate) is an ecclesiastical entity in the 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 residence of ...

) in the Diocese of Agder og Telemark. The white, wooden church was built in a

octagonal In geometry, an octagon () is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, which alternates two types of edges. A truncated octagon, t is a hex ...

design in 1828 by Anders Thorsen Syrtveit who used plans drawn up by the

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 ...

Hans Linstow. The church seats about 200 people.

History

The earliest existing historical records of the church date back to the year 1328, but the church was not new that year. It was likely 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 ...

that was probably built in the 13th century. In 1604, the old church was torn down and a new Årdal church was built. The new church was a

timber-framed Timber framing () and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy Beam (structure), timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and Woodworking joints, joined timbers with joints secure ...

long church Church building in Norway began when Christianity in Norway, 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 inst ...

. By 1662, it was noted that the church was already in need of extensive repairs. In 1723, the King sold the church to the local farmers in the parish. Due to population growth, in the early 1800s, the parish decided that the church needed to be replaced. In 1828, the old church was torn down and replaced with the present octagonal building. There was a small graveyard surrounding the church, but in the 20th century, some land across the road was acquired as an annex graveyard.

Media gallery

Bygland IMG 7496 grendi aardal kirke rk 85975.JPG Årdal kirke, Aust-Agder - Riksantikvaren-T200 01 0001.jpg

References

{{use dmy dates, date=January 2021 Bygland Churches in Agder Wooden churches in Norway Octagonal churches in Norway 19th-century Church of Norway church buildings Churches completed in 1828 13th-century establishments in Norway

History

Media gallery

See also

References