St Olaf's Church, Balestrand

Coordinates: 61°12′27.25″N 6°32′3.73″E / 61.2075694°N 6.5343694°E / 61.2075694; 6.5343694

St Olaf's Church
The English Church

St Olaf's Church, an Anglican Church
in Balestrand, Norway
Country Norway
Denomination Church of England
History
Dedication Saint Olaf
Architecture
Architect(s) Jens Zetlitz Monrad Kielland
Style Dragestil
Stave church (imitation)
Specifications
Materials Wood
Administration
Parish Summer Seasonal Chaplaincy
Diocese Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Category:St. Olafs kyrkje, Balestrand.
Tourist photo from 1925.
The Banner of Saint Olaf.

St Olaf's Church (The English Church, Nynorsk: St. Olafs kyrkje, Den engelske kyrkja) is an Anglican church in Balestrand in the county of Sogn og Fjordane in Norway. The church was built in 1897 as a stave church imitation and has 95 seats.

St. Olaf's Church is notable as the inspiration for the chapel in Elsa's coronation scene in the 2013 Disney film Frozen.[1]

History

Balestrand was a popular site for British tourists in the latter half of the 19th century. One of these was the English clergyman's daughter and climbing pioneer Margaret Sophia Green. She got along very well with the Norwegians and loved the Norwegian mountains. She married Knut Kvikne in 1890, the hotel host at Kviknes Hotel in Balestrand. Margaret got tuberculosis and died in 1894. Before she died, she told her husband that she had a dream that it would be built an English church in Balestrand. Knut Kvikne separated a plot from Kvikne hotel's large plots. With the help of generous donations from two American women he could start building. The church was consecrated just three years after Margaret's death.

Ornaments

The church looks from the outside like a stave church and has horizontal paneling. It has two spiers, one of the choir, and a bell tower over the ridge turret in the middle of the nave. The ridge turret is decorated with two dragon heads, as on the ancient stave churches.

Just inside the front door hangs a painted portrait of Margaret Sophia Green Kvikne, her name after she married. There is a memorial brass plate. The inscription is The Mountains shall bring Peace. This is taken from Psalm 72, and was a very important Bible verse for the climbing Margaret.

The altarpiece, painted by Emma Pastor Normann is from 1897 and shows The Risen Christ.

The church has a banner, showing Saint Olaf, probably made in 1897.

The church room is also decorated with wood carvings.

Stained glass

In the choir there are nine stained glass windows with saints as a theme. Of these saints there are three Norwegian saints; St Olaf, St Hallvard and St Sunniva. The others are Mary, mother of Jesus, St Columba, St Clement, St Bride, St Swithun and St George.

Current use

The church as seen from the Sognefjord.
Saltire is one of the heraldic symbols occurring as a subject of the wood carvings.
Interior. The rope is used to operate the church bells.

During the summer the church is used by the Anglican church for services in English every Sunday. There are also services in weekdays and weekends when priests are available. At other times of the year there are worship services when it is agreed.

The church is run economicly by donations from tourists, and the priests who serve in the church are speaking English and working for free. Kvikne Hotel gives them free room and board, which they have done since the church was consecrated. Janitorial and supervision services of the church building are carried out by the hotel.

The Church has over the years been a popular location for weddings, especially by Norwegian-British bridal couples.

References

  1. ↑ Solomon, Charles (2013). The Art of Frozen. Chronicle Books. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-45211-716-4.


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