Oddernes Church ( no, Oddernes 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

Kristiansand Municipality 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 incorporation ...

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 district of Lund in the borough of Lund in the city of Kristiansand. It is one of the churches for the Oddernes

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 Kristiansand domprosti (arch- deanery) in the

Diocese of Agder og Telemark The Diocese of Agder og Telemark ( no, Agder og Telemark bispedømme) is a diocese of the Church of Norway, covering all of Agder county and most of Vestfold og Telemark county in Norway. The cathedral city is Kristiansand, Norway's fifth larges ...

. The white, stone church was built in a long church design around the year 1040 using plans drawn up by unknown

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 ...

. This makes it the oldest building in the city of Kristiansand. The church seats about 395 people. The

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

has rubble walls and a semi-circular

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an '' exedra''. ...

, testifying to the church's

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

origins. The newer additions such as the tower are made out of wood. The church was the main church for the old municipality of

Oddernes Oddernes is a borough in the city of Kristiansand which lies in the municipality of Kristiansand in Agder county, Norway. The borough covers eastern Kristiansand on the east side of the Topdalsfjorden and the Varodd Bridge. The borough include ...

which existed from 1838 until 1965. North of the church is a parish house.

History

Rune stone

rune stone A runestone is typically a raised stone with a runic inscription, but the term can also be applied to inscriptions on boulders and on bedrock. The tradition began in the 4th century and lasted into the 12th century, but most of the runestones d ...

(now located in the

porch A porch (from Old French ''porche'', from Latin ''porticus'' "colonnade", from ''porta'' "passage") is a room or gallery located in front of an entrance of a building. A porch is placed in front of the facade of a building it commands, and form ...

) that originally stood in the churchyard shows the site has been central to the community even earlier in view of its possible reference to St. Olaf.

Founding of the church

Findings in

burial mound Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...

s in the area testify to a settlement dating back to AD 400. It is also believed that there was a royal residence in Oddernes prior to the year 800. The first church on the site was a small wooden church or

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 ...

where the present stone church is located. This is based on the fact that the runestone inscription from around the year 1000 mentions a church. Before 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 ...

, the church was dedicated St. Olaf. The present church was built during the 1100s out of stone (some portions of the walls from that church are still part of the church today). The Romanesque stone church had a rectangular

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 ...

and a narrower, rectangular

with an

Gifts and expansion

In the 1630s, the church

was extended to the west by after a gift of funds from

King Christian IV Christian IV (12 April 1577 – 28 February 1648) was King of Denmark and Norway and Duke of Holstein and Schleswig from 1588 until his death in 1648. His reign of 59 years, 330 days is the longest of Danish monarchs and Scandinavian monar ...

in connection with a visit in 1635. The money was used for major repairs in 1642-1644 and in 1699 for constructing an octagonal bell tower. There are three bells in the tower, the oldest from the 13th century. The organ, altarpiece, pulpit, and tower were all the result of gifts from the first Mayor of Kristiansand, Christen Nielssøn Wendelboe and wife during the mid-1700s. The pulpit is made in a classical baroque style. The

minstrels' gallery A minstrels' gallery is a form of balcony, often inside the great hall of a castle or manor house, and used to allow musicians (originally minstrels) to perform, sometimes discreetly hidden from the guests below. Notable examples *A rare example ...

facing the church room along the north side of the church is built in a simple

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

style. It has 44 segments with images of prophets, apostles, and allegorical figures. A new interior was installed in the church in 1788 and was elaborately decorated. In the early 1800s, a sacristy was built on the north side of the

choir A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which sp ...

. The decorations and embellishments of the minstrel's gallery and the walls were covered with brown paint in 1827 (until 1927 when the paint was removed).

Election 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.

Parish center

In the 1970s, a parish center was built about north of the church. It includes a parish hall and offices for the parish.

Cemetery

Kristiansand's largest

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...

surrounds the church. The cemetery has memorials of all kinds of faith. There is also a separate grave chapel adjacent to the cemetery and a congregation house which is associated with Oddernes Church.

Media gallery

Krsand Oddernes kirke rk 85198 IMG 3676.JPG, Front of church Krsand Oddernes kirke rk 85198 IMG 3677.JPG, Side window detail Krsand Oddernes kirke rk 85198 IMG 3678.JPG, Back side of church Krsand Oddernes kirke rk 85198 IMG 3679.JPG, Side view of the church Oddernes kirke 01.jpg, Exterior view of the churchyard Oddernes stone 2016.jpg, Oddernes stone inside the church Oddernes kirke, Vest-Agder - Riksantikvaren-T202 01 0452.jpg, Former location of the Oddernes stone.
Source: Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage Oddernes kirke - an10071202021026.jpg, The church as it probably looked like before the expansion in 1630. Source: Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage

References

{{use dmy dates, date=January 2021 Churches in Kristiansand Stone churches in Norway 12th-century churches in Norway 11th-century establishments in Norway Norwegian election church