Viby Church ( Danish: Viby Kirke) is a church located in Viby Parish in

Aarhus Aarhus (, , ; officially spelled Århus from 1948 until 1 January 2011) is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus municipality, Aarhus Municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and app ...

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

. The church is situated in the neighbourhood Viby, west of Marselisborg. It is a parish church which belongs to the

Church of Denmark The Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Denmark or National Church ( , or unofficially ; ), sometimes called the Church of Denmark, is the established, state-supported church in Denmark. The supreme secular authority of the church is composed of ...

and there's population of 8.211 within the parish borders (2015).

History

Viby church was built in the late 12th century and was likely originally the property of the king. In 1661 the state elected to sell the church to Gabriel Marselis in order to pay off war debts. In 1710 the church was sold again, this time to Christian Charisius, who owned Constantinsborg. In 1771 the

baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often Hereditary title, hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than ...

of Marselisborg bought it and the church stayed with the Marselisborg estate until Minister of the Interior Hans Peter Ingerslev acquired the estate in 1835. The church was sold to

Aarhus Municipality Aarhus Municipality (), known as Århus Municipality () until 2011, is a ''Municipalities of Denmark, kommune'' in the Central Denmark Region, on the east coast of the Jutland peninsula in central Denmark. The municipality covers an area of , and ...

in 1896 and two years later, in 1898, it was given to Viby Municipality. In 1970 Viby Municipality was absorbed into Aarhus municipality but 5 years later, in 1975, the church was made an independent entity within the

, although Aarhus municipality continued to administer the cemetery until 1 April 1996.

Architecture

It is probable that the king had the patronage of Viby church in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

. The church, which is now situated in a neighbourhood of Arhus, consists of Romanesque

apse In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault (architecture), vault or semi-dome, also known as an ' ...

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 ...

and

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 two late-Medieval additions: the porch in the south and the tower in the west. The Romanesque sections are built of rough and hewn

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

boulders on a chamfered base;

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

were used in the corners and around the windows and doors. Between 1449 and 1482 vaults were included in chancel and nave. In the masonry of the tower a quantity of re-used granite ashlar is included which may have been brought here from a demolished church. The spire, which is in a mansard style, was erected in 1785. The present-day appearance of the church is characterized by a restoration in 1962, during which wall-painting decoration in the usual late Gothic style of the diocese was revealed in all the vaulting. Among the articles of furniture in the church, the pulpit from c. 1610 deserves special mention. It is ascribed to the woodcarver Mikkel van Grønningen in Hornslet, who supplied works both for Aarhus Cathedral and several East Jutland churches, including Trige. The altarpiece and altar candlesticks were also obtained in the first half of the 17th century, while the Romanesque baptismal font was retained as usually happened. The greater part of the furniture, which showed the church's former close relationship with the Constantinsborg and Marselisborg estates, has now disappeared, and only a

chasuble The chasuble () is the outermost liturgical vestment worn by clergy for the celebration of the Eucharist in Western-tradition Christian churches that use full vestments, primarily in Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches. In the Eastern ...

cross from about 1700 has been preserved. The clockwork in the tower is from the beginning of the 19th century. In the cemetery tombstones from the 17th century indicate the graves of clergy belonging to the same family. Viby Kirke ca. 1900.jpg, Viby Church c. 1900 Viby-kirke.jpg, Tower of Viby Church

References

External links

Viby Church WebsiteChurch of Denmark's page for Viby Parish
{{DEFAULTSORT:Viby Church Lutheran churches in Aarhus Lutheran churches converted from Roman Catholicism Churches in the Diocese of Aarhus

History

Architecture

See also

References

External links