Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Bønsnes Kirke

Tuesday morning, June 30th, we awoke to another beautiful day in Norway. After a nice breakfast at Per‘s we loaded into cars and went on a tour of the area. The first stop was the Bønsnes Kirke (Church). King Olav the Saint (995 to 1030 AD) was born near the site of the church and there is a tale that says it was built by the King himself (the tale says during a voyage on the Tyrifjord Lake he found his life in danger and he promised to build a church if he and his men would reach the shore alive). Olav is important in Norwegian history because he is the first King to establish what would become the modern borders of Norway, unifying the people (at least briefly) of the whole land. He is considered a saint because he brought Christianity to the interior and north of Norway, and after he died people claimed to be healed by his relics - thus began a long tradition of pilgrimages to Trondheim where Olav was buried. This Bønsnes Kirke was one of the stops on the pilgrimage journey.

Some of my mom’s cousins participated in a modern pilgrimage a few years ago, retracing the route the early pilgrims took. They had pictures and newspaper clippings of the event - it seems to be a significant thing to do and the pilgrimage trail is marked along the whole of its route. Here we were on our own pilgrimage intersecting with an ancient pilgrimage that until we arrived in Norway, I did really know about.

The church is from the 11th century, and is one of a few privately owned (or endowment) churches in Norway. This means that rather than being owned by the Church of Norway it belongs to the people living in the Hole area. An elderly fellow, who has been looking after the church since the early 70s let us in to have a look around. Inside we found some interesting features, here are a few of them:
- a pew with a lock where prisoners could sit while attending worship.
- chairs in the meeting room made from trees, in one piece (including the hollowed out part under one of the seats to store some drinks.
- a old pipe organ, at least 2 and a half centuries (which I got to play).
- an altar piece with mermaids as part of the decoration (see the picture).

Some special services are still held in the church, but only about 6 times a year, the regular worship services for the area take place in the Hole Church, which we saw later that day. I ended our time at the church by climbing up to the bells, which I tried to record a bit by ringing them with my fist, but I’m not sure it turned out that well, but it was fun to try. For the first stop on our tour that day it turned out to be an interesting and educational place to visit.

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