The Loppi Old Church (; ), also known as St. Bridget Church (; ), is the 17th-century wooden church located in the
Loppi municipality in
Tavastia Proper Tavastia () or Tavastland may refer to:
Regions
* Häme (Swedish: ''Tavastland'', Latin: ''Tavastia'')
* Tavastia (historical province)
Tavastia (; ; ; also called ''Yam'' (Ямь) or ''Yem'' (Емь) in Russian sources) is a historical prov ...
,
Finland
Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...
.
The church was named after the Swedish patron saint
Saint Bridget.
The type of the church is a long church without a tower, and its interior is covered by a plate
barrel vault
A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...
.
The exact age of the church is not known for sure, as the documents that probably state its age were destroyed in the fire of the
newer church. It has been speculated that it could have been built as early as the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries. However, 1665 and 1666 have been determined as the last growth period of its wall logs, based on which the church's estimated completion date has been determined.
According to local
folklore
Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...
, Kaakkomäki of Loppi was inhabited by a giant
devil
A devil is the mythical personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conce ...
in ancient times. When the old church was built, the devil tried to disrupt the construction and became enraged when the
church bell
A church bell is a bell in a church building designed to be heard outside the building. It can be a single bell, or part of a set of bells. Their main function is to call worshippers to the church for a service of worship, but are also rung o ...
s rang. The devil tried to destroy the church bell tower and threw it with a large rock. However, the rock flew over the church to Tiirinkallio on the shore of
Lake Loppijärvi, from where the rock was combed into the lake.
The old church hill, where the church is located, belongs to the nationally significant built cultural environments defined by the
Finnish Heritage Agency
The Finnish Heritage Agency (, ), previously known in English as the National Board of Antiquities, preserves Finland's material cultural heritage: collects, studies and distributes knowledge of it. The agency is a cultural and research institutio ...
. On the church hill there is, among other things, the grave monument of the Finnish archaeologist and explorer (1882–1965).
Sources
Further reading
*
References
External links
Loppi Old Churchat Lopen seurakunta (in Finnish)
1660s establishments in Sweden
Buildings and structures in Kanta-Häme
Churches completed in the 1660s
Loppi
Tourist attractions in Kanta-Häme
Wooden churches in Finland
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