Hidra Church ( no, Hidra kirke) 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 in the large

Flekkefjord Municipality is a municipality in Agder county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Lister. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Flekkefjord. The villages of Sira, Gyland, Rasvåg, Kirkehavn, and Åna-Sira are ...

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,

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 ...

. It is located in the village of

Kirkehamn Kirkehamn or Kirkehavn (literally: ''Church harbour'') is a fishing village in Flekkefjord municipality in Agder county, Norway. The village is one of two harbours on the Norwegian island Hidra. Kirkehamn lies on the west end of the island, whi ...

on the island of Hidra. It is the church for the Hidra

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 o ...

which is part of the

Lister og Mandal prosti This list of churches in Agder og Telemark is a list of the Church of Norway churches in the Diocese of Agder og Telemark in Agder and Vestfold og Telemark counties in southern Norway. The diocese is based at the Kristiansand Cathedral in the cit ...

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

octagonal In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") 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, w ...

design in 1854 using 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 ...

Christian Heinrich Grosch Christian Heinrich Grosch (21 January 1801 – 4 May 1865) was a Norwegian architect. He was a dominant figure in Norwegian architecture in the first half of the 1800s. Biography Christian Heinrich Grosch was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. ...

. The church seats about 700 people.

History

The earliest existing historical records of the church date back to the year 1348, but its baptismal font has been dated back to the 1200s, so that may be the date the church was initially founded. The first church on the site was likely a wooden

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 ar ...

on a small islet, just off the coast. At some point, the wooden church was taken down and replaced with a stone church. In 1520 during the reign of King Christian II of Denmark-Norway, bandits sailed into the harbour and set fire to the church. That stone church was torn down around the year 1610 and replaced with a timber-framed long church. During the 18th century, it was converted into a

cruciform Cruciform is a term for physical manifestations resembling a common cross or Christian cross. The label can be extended to architectural shapes, biology, art, and design. Cruciform architectural plan Christian churches are commonly describe ...

design by additions built to the north and the south of the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

. From 1800 to 1818, the small strait that separated the island on which the church sat and the main part of the island of Hidra was filled in so that the church was no longer located on an island, but rather was connected to the main (large) island of Hidra. In 1854, the old church was torn down and replaced with a new building that has an

design. The new church was constructed on the same site, but a few meters to the east of the old structure since the strait had been filled in and there was now more room to build the church. In 1814, this church served as an

election church An election church ( no, valgkirke) is a term used for approximately 300 churches in Norway that were used as polling stations during the elections to the Norwegian Constituent Assembly at Eidsvoll in 1814. This was Norway's first national election ...

( no, valgkirke). Together with more than 300 other parish churches across Norway, it was a polling station for elections to the 1814

Norwegian Constituent Assembly The Norwegian Constituent Assembly (in Norwegian ''Grunnlovsforsamlingen'', also known as ''Riksforsamlingen'') is the name given to the 1814 constitutional assembly at Eidsvoll in Norway, that adopted the Norwegian Constitution and formalised t ...

which wrote the Constitution of Norway. This was Norway's first national elections. Each

church 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 ...

was a constituency that elected people called "electors" who later met together in each county to elect the representatives for the assembly that was to meet in

Eidsvoll Eidsvoll (; sometimes written as ''Eidsvold'') is a municipality in Akershus in Viken county, Norway. It is part of the Romerike traditional region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Sundet. General information ...

later that year.

References

{{use dmy dates, date=December 2020 Flekkefjord Churches in Agder Wooden churches in Norway Octagonal churches in Norway 19th-century Church of Norway church buildings Churches completed in 1854 13th-century establishments in Norway Norwegian election church

History

See also

References