Frøya Church ( no, Frøya kyrkje) is a

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the 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 community activities, ...

of the

Church of Norway The Church of Norway ( nb, Den norske kirke, nn, Den norske kyrkja, se, Norgga girku, sma, Nöörjen gærhkoe) is an evangelical Lutheran denomination of Protestant Christianity and by far the largest Christian church in Norway. The church b ...

Bremanger Municipality Bremanger is a municipality in Vestland county, Norway. The village of Svelgen is the administrative centre of the municipality. Other villages include Bremanger, Berle, Davik, Isane, Kalvåg, Svelgen, Rugsund, and Ålfoten. Bremanger i ...

Vestland Vestland is a county in Norway established on 1 January 2020. The county is located in Western Norway and it is centred around the city of Bergen, Norway's second largest city. The administrative centre of the county is the city of Bergen, where t ...

county,

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 t ...

. It is located in the village of

Kalvåg Kalvåg is a village in Bremanger Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. It is located on the southeast side of the island of Frøya on the coast along the Frøysjøen strait, the southern entrance to the Nordfjorden. The village of Kalvåg wa ...

, on the southern coast of the small island of Frøya. It is the church for the Frøya

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 m ...

which is part of the

Nordfjord prosti Nordfjord ( en, Northern fjord—in contrast to Sunnfjord) is a traditional district of Norway. Geography The region is located in the northern part of Vestland county in Western Norway. It centers on the Nordfjorden and it comprises the mun ...

(

deanery 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 ...

) in the

Diocese of Bjørgvin The Diocese of Bjørgvin ( no, Bjørgvin bispedømme) is one of the 11 dioceses that make up the Church of Norway. It includes all of the churches located in the county of Vestland in Western Norway. The cathedral city is Bergen, Norway's second ...

. The white, wooden church was built in a

long church Church building in Norway began when 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 instance under Urnes Stave C ...

style in 1865. The architect was the painter artist

Anders Askevold Anders Askevold (25 December 1834 – 22 October 1900) was a Norwegian painter. His art was characterized by romantic national expression. He was best known for his fjord landscapes from Western Norway. Biography Anders Monsen Askevold was ...

from the nearby

Askvoll is a municipality in Vestland county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Sunnfjord. The administrative centre is the village of Askvoll. Other villages in the municipality include Holmedal, Kvammen, and Stongfjorden. The ...

municipality. The church seats about 400 people.

History

The parish of Bremanger had a church at Grotle on the island of

Bremangerlandet Bremangerlandet is an island in Bremanger Municipality in the traditional district of Nordfjord in Vestland county, Norway. The island is one of the largest islands in the county. The highest point on the island is the tall mountain Svartevasse ...

, just west of the main village of Bremanger for many hundreds of years. It was decided to move the location of the Bremanger parish church from Grotle to the village of

, about to the south, since it would be more centrally located within the parish. So, the aging church at Grotle was torn down and the new church in Kalvåg was completed in 1865. The church was

consecrated Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word ''consecration'' literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different grou ...

on 11 December 1865 by the local dean Johan Carl Christie. Originally, the church had a high

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are ...

atop the tower, but there were such major problems with this that a new tower was built in 1933 with a larger base (and thus also a larger

church porch A church porch is a room-like structure at a church's main entrance. A porch protects from the weather to some extent. Some porches have an outer door, others a simple gate, and in some cases the outer opening is not closed in any way. The porch ...

). The upper part of the tower and the spire are both quite low since they were rebuilt. The interior of the church building remodeled and redecorated in 1940. In 1961, a

sacristy A sacristy, also known as a vestry or preparation room, is a room in Christian churches for the keeping of vestments (such as the alb and chasuble) and other church furnishings, sacred vessels, and parish records. The sacristy is usually located ...

was built. The

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 o ...

dates back to 1720 when it was used in the old church, located in Grotle (just west of the village of Bremanger).

Name

The new church at Kalvåg carried over the old ''Bremanger Church'' name to this new church site, since it was the main church for the Bremanger parish. Later, in 1908, a new chapel was built in the village of Bremanger, but that was named Bremangerpollen Chapel. This caused some controversy since Bremanger Church was located in Kalvåg (not Bremanger village). In 1952, after the church at Bremanger village had existed for 37 years, a change of names was finally decided. On 1 January 1953, the church on the island of Frøya was re-named ''Frøya Church'' and Bremangerpollen Chapel was given the name ''Bremanger Church''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Froya Church Bremanger Churches in Vestland Long churches in Norway Wooden churches in Norway 19th-century Church of Norway church buildings Churches completed in 1865 1865 establishments in Norway

History

Name

See also

References