Nordal Church


Nordal Church is a parish church of the Church of Norway in Kinn Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. It is located in the small village of Norddalsfjord, and it serves the northeastern part of the municipality. It is the church for the Nordal parish which is part of the Sunnfjord prosti in the Diocese of Bjørgvin. The white, wooden church was built in a long church style in 1898 by the architect Jacob Wilhelm Nordan. The church seats about 200 people. The church was consecrated on 14 September 1898 by the local Dean Andreas D. Jespersen.

History

The people of Norddalsfjorden had for a long time belonged to the parish of Bru, which meant an extremely long and strenuous way to get to church which was located on the island of Svanøya. From the upper parts of the Grøndalen valley down to the fjord it was a distance of which included crossing five lakes by boat. From the fjord to Bru Church it was another across the sea, which took about four hours by row boat. They had to go all the way to the Svanøy Church, not only for ordinary worship services, but also for baptism ceremonies, weddings, and funerals.
In 1887, the local residents began asking for their own church, and two years later the decision was made to get started on the project. The people in the valley had raised, and the same sum was allocated by the Norwegian Parliament and the municipality of Kinn. The "Kinn Sparebank" also donated, so the total sum raised was which was enough to cover the construction costs. At first, the parish vicar was somewhat reluctant to have a new church building because this implied that he would have to travel more frequently. Furthermore, when the church was completed, he tried to confine the services to the summer months, but the parish council objected. In the first years, services were held five times a year, preferably in the winter. Nowadays services are held fourteen times a year.

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