Rødøy 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 ...

Rødøy Municipality Rødøy is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Nordland Counties of Norway, county, Norway. It is part of the Helgeland Districts of Norway, traditional region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Våga ...

Nordland Nordland (; , , , ) is one of the three northernmost Counties of Norway, counties in Norway in the Northern Norway region, bordering Troms in the north, Trøndelag in the south, Norrbotten County in Sweden to the east, Västerbotten County to t ...

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 on the island of

Rødøya Rødøya is an island in Rødøy Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. The island is located just west of the mouth of the Tjongsfjorden, north of the island of Gjerdøya, and west of the mainland. There are ferry connections from the v ...

. It is one of the churches in the Rødøy

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 Nord-Helgeland 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 Sør-Hålogaland Sør-Hålogaland is a diocese in the Church of Norway. The Diocese covers the Lutheran Church of Norway churches located within Nordland county in Norway. The diocese is headquartered in the Bodø (town), town of Bodø at Bodø Cathedral, the sea ...

. The white, wooden church was built in an

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 ...

style in 1885 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 ...

Andreas Grenstad. The church seats about 700 people.

History

The earliest existing historical records of the church date back to the year 1432, but the church was not built that year. The first church here was located about north of the present site of the church (an alternate site where there may be evidence of this first church is about north of the present church site). The first church 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 built in the 14th century. During the 17th century, records show that the church was in need of replacing one of the large stave posts. In 1725, the old medieval building was torn down and a new church was built on the same site. The new building was a small wooden church with a low roof line and no tower. It had a

cruciform A cruciform is a physical manifestation resembling a common cross or Christian cross. These include architectural shapes, biology, art, and design. Cruciform architectural plan Christian churches are commonly described as having a cruciform ...

design and later a tower was constructed on the roof. In 1814, this church served as an

election church An election church () 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 elections and this ass ...

(). 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 ( or ) is the name given to the 1814 constitutional assembly that adopted the Norwegian Constitution and formalised the dissolution of the union with Denmark. The meetings took place at the Eidsvoll Manor in th ...

which wrote the

Constitution of Norway The 'Constitution of Norway'' (complete name: The Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway; Danish language, Danish: ; Norwegian language, Norwegian Bokmål: ; Nynorsk, Norwegian Nynorsk: ) was adopted on 16 May and signed on 17 May 1814 by the N ...

. This was Norway's first national elections. Each church parish 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 at

Eidsvoll Manor Eidsvollsbygningen (Literally: ''The Eidsvoll building'') is a historic manor house located at Eidsvoll in Akershus county, Norway. The building is where the Constitution of Norway was signed on 17 May 1814. The estate is now owned by The State o ...

later that year. In 1885, a new church was constructed at a site about south of the old church on the present church site. This new church was built in an

design. After construction was complete, the old church was torn down. The church had a fire in 2009 after a

lightning Lightning is a natural phenomenon consisting of electrostatic discharges occurring through the atmosphere between two electrically charged regions. One or both regions are within the atmosphere, with the second region sometimes occurring on ...

strike.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodoy Church Rødøy Churches in Nordland Octagonal churches in Norway Wooden churches in Norway 19th-century Church of Norway church buildings Churches completed in 1885 14th-century establishments in Norway Norwegian election churches

History

See also

References