Sjoa Chapel ( no, Sjoa kapell) is a

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common typ ...

of the

Church of Norway The Church of Norway ( nb, Den norske kirke, nn, Den norske kyrkja, se, Norgga girku, sma, Nöörjen gærhkoe) is an Lutheranism, evangelical Lutheran denomination of Protestant Christianity and by far the largest Christian church in Norway. ...

Sel Municipality Sel is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Otta. The municipality also includes several notable villages including ...

Innlandet Innlandet is a county in Norway. It was created on 1 January 2020 with the merger of the old counties of Oppland and Hedmark (the municipalities of Jevnaker and Lunner were transferred to the neighboring county of Viken on the same date). The n ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. It is located in the village of

Sjoa The Sjoa is a river in Innlandet county, Norway. The long river runs through the municipalities of Vågå and Sel and it provides the outlet from lake Gjende at Gjendesheim in the Jotunheimen mountains of Norway's Jotunheim National Park. T ...

. It is the

annex chapel A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently. Often a chapel of ease is deliberately b ...

for the Sel

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or ...

which is part of the

Nord-Gudbrandsdal prosti The list of churches in Hamar is a list of the Church of Norway churches in the Diocese of Hamar which includes all of Innlandet county (plus two municipalities in Viken county) in Norway. The list is divided into several sections, one for each ...

(

deanery A deanery (or decanate) is an ecclesiastical entity in the Roman 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 reside ...

) in the

Diocese of Hamar The Diocese of Hamar ( no, Hamar Bispedømme) is a diocese within the Church of Norway. The Diocese of Hamar includes all of the churches in Innlandet county plus the churches in Lunner in Viken county. Administratively, the diocese is divided ...

. The brown, wooden church was built in a

long church Church building in Norway began when 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 instance under Urnes Stave ...

design in 1978 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 ...

Jon Rukin. The church seats about 70 people.

History

As early as the 1930s, people in the village of Sjoa were working towards getting their own chapel so they wouldn't need to travel so far to get to church. In 1947, a church site was purchased. During the 1970s, the old Sjoa Station building that was the local railway station for the

Dovrebanen The Dovre Line ( no, Dovrebanen) is a Norwegian railway line with three slightly different lines which all lead to the historic city of Trondheim. Definition *Dovre Line is the current name of the 548 km main line of the Norwegian railway s ...

railway was no longer used. The idea came up to move the station to the chapel site and renovate it to be used as a chapel. The railway station had originally been designed by

Paul Due Paul Due (13 August 1835 – 26 February 1919) was a Norwegian architect and significant contributor to the stations built by the Norwegian State Railways. Biography Paul Due was born in Kristiansand, Norway. He graduated in engineering sc ...

in 1896. This building was disassembled and was rebuilt on the chapel site in 1977-1978 under the leadership of Jon Rukin. The old building was rebuilt as it was plus the addition of a

choir A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which s ...

and sacristy on the north end and a small tower with a cross above the two-story

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 ...

on the south end. The new Sjoa Chapel was

consecrated Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word ''consecration'' literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different grou ...

by the Bishop

Georg Hille Georg Hille (born 28 December 1923) is a Norwegian clergyman. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Hamar from 1974 to 1993. Hille was born in Varteig as the son of bishop Henrik Greve Hille, and grandson of Arnoldus Hille. He graduated as cand. ...

on 17 December 1978.

References

{{use dmy dates, date=December 2021 Sel Churches in Innlandet Long churches in Norway Wooden churches in Norway 20th-century Church of Norway church buildings Churches completed in 1978 1978 establishments in Norway

History

See also

References