Kihelkonna St. Michael's Church

Template:Short description Template:Infobox church Kihelkonna St. Michael's Church, (Template:Langx) sometimes simply Kihelkonna Church, is a medieval Lutheran church on Saaremaa island in western Estonia.

Contents

1 History

2 Architecture

3 See also

4 References

5 External links

History

The church was founded sometime around 1250 as a joint undertaking by both the Livonian Order and the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek as a part of crusader efforts to Christianise Estonia. The church was built at a strategic location, by a harbour of some importance and at a road connecting western Saaremaa with the rest of Estonia. Originally, the church was designed to have a western tower but after a rebellion in 1260–1261, at which time the church was still unfinished, the plans were scrapped. The present-day tower only dates from 1899. Apart from the tower, the building of the church finished sometime in the later 1260s.[1][2]

Architecture

Of the original medieval furnishing, very little remains. The interior is dominated by high, white-washed vaults. The altarpiece dates from 1591, and depicts the Last Supper. In addition, the church has a fine organ and a carved epitaph dating from 1650 by a local carpenter, Balthasar Raschky.[2]

The exterior of the church is today dominated by the neo-Gothic tower, but the church also has an external bell-tower, dating from 1638. Such free-standing belfries were once quite popular in Estonia, but today the one at Kihelkonna church is the only one surviving.[1][2]

See also

Architecture of Estonia

References

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External links

Template:Commons category-inline

Template:Churches in Saare County, Estonia Template:Authority control

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↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Template:Cite web