Dolm 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 ...

Hitra Municipality Hitra is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Trøndelag Counties of Norway, county, Norway. The municipality covers the Hitra (island), island of Hitra and hundreds of smaller islands, islets, and Skerry, skerries as well as an ar ...

Trøndelag Trøndelag (; or is a county and coextensive with the Trøndelag region (also known as ''Midt-Norge'' or ''Midt-Noreg,'' "Mid-Norway") in the central part of Norway. It was created in 1687, then named Trondhjem County (); in 1804 the county was ...

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 at Dolmvarden, on the southwestern coast of the island of

Dolmøya Dolmøya is an island in Hitra Municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. The island is located in the Frøyfjorden, just north of the village of Melandsjøen on the island of Hitra (island), Hitra. The island of Dolmøya is flat, swampy, and ha ...

. It is one of the churches for the ''Hitra og Fillan''

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

Orkdal prosti This list of churches in Nidaros is a list of the Church of Norway churches in the Diocese of Nidaros in Norway. It includes all of the parishes in Trøndelag county. The diocese is based at the Nidaros Cathedral in the city of Trondheim (city), T ...

(

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 Nidaros Nidaros is a diocese in the Lutheran Church of Norway. It covers Trøndelag county in Central Norway and its cathedral city is Trondheim, which houses the well-known Nidaros Cathedral. Since 10 September 2017, the Bishop of Nidaros is Herborg ...

. The white, stone church was originally built around the year 1188 by an 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 ...

. For centuries, it was the main church for the

prestegjeld A ''prestegjeld'' was a geographic and administrative area within the Church of Norway (''Den Norske Kirke'') roughly equivalent to a parish. This traditional designation was in use for centuries to divide the kingdom into ecclesiastical areas tha ...

of Hitra. The church was built in a

long church Church building in Norway began when Christianity in Norway, 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 inst ...

design and it has a Romanesque style with rounded arches and thick stone walls. The church seats about 200 people.

History

The earliest existing historical records of the church date back to the year 1774, but the church is much older than that. Local tradition says it may have been built by monks from

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. The church is said to have been originally built in 1188 (or around that time), but one source says that it was built in the late 1400s. The stone

was built in a Romanesque style, in a design that was very common in the 1100s and 1200s, but the walls are thinner than most churches of that time. They only measure about in width, which could point to a later construction date. It has 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 ...

with narrower and

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

with a lower roof line, and it has no

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 nave measures about and the chancel measures about . The church is a stone church, but all the gable walls are built out of wood. The church was damaged by fire on several occasions. The church burned and was rebuilt after fires in 1709, 1772, 1848, and most recently on 3 February 1920. However, after the fire in 1920, it was decided that a new, main church for the parish should be built across the

strait A strait is a water body connecting two seas or water basins. The surface water is, for the most part, at the same elevation on both sides and flows through the strait in both directions, even though the topography generally constricts the ...

in the village of

Melandsjøen Melandsjøen is a village in Hitra Municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. The village is located on the north shore of the island of Hitra, just across the strait from the island of Dolmøya. Melandsjøen is the home to the Hitra Church. T ...

on the north shore of the island of Hitra. This was a controversial decision, but the parish agreed to rebuild the old Dolm Church and maintain it in exchange for the brand new church about away on the larger island, where the majority of the people lived. So, in 1927 the new

Hitra Church Hitra Church () is a parish church of the Church of Norway in Hitra Municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. It is located in the village of Melandsjøen on the north shore of the Hitra (island), island of Hitra. It is one of the churches for t ...

was built and that church became the new main church for the parish. Dolm Church was rebuilt, but it was now an annex church for the parish that is used infrequently.

Election church

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.

Media gallery

Dolm kirke 2.jpg Dolm kirke 3.jpg

References

{{use dmy dates, date=July 2021 Hitra Churches in Trøndelag Long churches in Norway Stone churches in Norway 12th-century churches in Norway Buildings and structures completed in 1188 Churches completed in the 1180s Norwegian election churches

History

Election church

Media gallery

See also

References