Sandnes 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 ...

Bygland Municipality Bygland is a municipality in Agder county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Setesdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Bygland. Other villages in the municipality include Åraksbø, Austad, By ...

Agder Agder is a counties of Norway, county () and districts of Norway, traditional region in the southern part of Norway and is coextensive with the Southern Norway region. The county was established on 1 January 2020, when the old Vest-Agder and Au ...

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 in the village of

Åraksbø Åraksbø is a village in Bygland municipality in Agder county, Norway. The village is located on the eastern shore of the Åraksfjorden, about north of the village of Sandnes and about southeast of the village of Ose. The population (2001) o ...

on the east side of the

Åraksfjorden Åraksfjorden is a lake in the municipality of Bygland in Agder county, Norway. The lake is part of the Otra drainage basin. The northern part of the lake is fed directly by the river Otra. The southern part of the lake goes through a narrow ...

. It is one of the churches for the Bygland og Årdal

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 Otredal 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 Agder og Telemark The Diocese of Agder og Telemark () is a diocese of the Church of Norway, covering all of Agder county and Telemark county in Norway. The cathedral city is Kristiansand, Norway's fifth largest city. Kristiansand Cathedral serves as the seat of t ...

. The white, wooden church was built in a

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 ...

design in 1844 by Anders Thorsen Syrtveit who used plans drawn up by the famous

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 ...

Hans Linstow Hans Ditlev Franciscus (Frants) von Linstow (4 May 1787 – 10 June 1851) was a Danish/ Norwegian architect who designed the Royal Palace in Oslo and much of the surrounding park and the street '' Karl Johans gate''. Background Hans Ditlev Fr ...

. The church seats about 200 people.

History

The earliest existing historical records of the church date back to the year 1437, but the church was not new at that time. The church was originally built (probably in the 14th century) on the shore of the

Byglandsfjorden Byglandsfjorden is a lake in Agder county, Norway. The lake lies on the river Otra, primarily in the municipality of Bygland, but the far southern tip of the lake extends into the neighboring municipality of Evje og Hornnes. The river flows ou ...

in the village of Sandnes. The first church on the site 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 building was torn down in the early 1680s and replaced with a new building on the same site. Not much is known about this building. In 1844, the old church was torn down and a new octagonal building was constructed on the same site. That same year, the cemetery was enlarged and a wall built around the cemetery. In 1935, the church was disassembled at its historic site in Sandnes and moved to the more populous village of

, about to the north, where it was reconstructed. The materials were hauled on the frozen Byglandsfjorden from the old site to the new site. The move had been contemplated for over 40 years since Åraksbø is where almost all the residents of the parish lived. This was a practical move, but it was also controversial. When the newly reconstructed church was re-consecrated in October 1935 by the Bishop, no one from Frøysnes and Sandnes (where the old church stood) came to the service as a way of protesting the move. As a way of smoothing things over, a small chapel was built on the site in Sandnes where the church once stood. The chapel was completed in 1940. There is no cemetery at the new church site, but the cemetery at the old site is still in use.

Media gallery

Bygland, Åraksbø, Sandnes kyrkje.JPG Bygland, Sandnes kyrkje, interiør.JPG

References

{{use dmy dates, date=January 2021 Bygland Churches in Agder Wooden churches in Norway Octagonal churches in Norway 19th-century Church of Norway church buildings Churches completed in 1844 14th-century establishments in Norway

History

Media gallery

See also

References