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SVALBARD CHURCH CELEBRATES 100 YEARS: From its first days during Longyearbyen’s deadliest mining accident to explosive changes now, church has shaped and been shaped by town’s spiritual highs and lows – inside the building and out

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Exactly 100 years ago as of Saturday – on Aug 28, 1921 – Svalbard Church was consecrated after a mere 50 days of construction. A mere few months later the first ministerial act by its first priest was presiding over the burial when 27 men were killed in an explosion in the coal mine within several hundred meters of the new building.

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The Church of Our Savior on Spitsbergen is consecrated on Aug. 28, 1921. Photo courtesy of Svalbard Museum.

“In a short time he succeeded in bringing together a group of men who were willing to rehearse a hymn for the occasion,” a book detailing the church’s history notes. “And it was strangely moving both for them and for the whole population to be reminded of how human plans can be laid in ruins in an instant.”

In the century since, the world’s northernmost church has indeed been the center of extremes of the high and low moments of human and spiritual presence in Longyearbyen. From the “politically sensitive game” of its establishment to its complete destruction during World War II to being a vital community cornerstone during today’s drastic climate/mining transition of town, the church’s narrative is drastically beautiful and stark as the natural surroundings much of its mission takes place in.

“Being a priest here is like standing in a long line and at the same time standing on someone’s shoulders,” Siv Limstrand, the current priest and 24th in the church’s history, told Svalbardposten in an article published this week commemorating the centennial anniversary. “Two perspectives that extend in two directions. Standing in the long line is like taking over the baton. Standing on someone’s shoulders means that we are constantly building on something others have done. Over the hundred years there have been incredibly good servants of the church, servants of the people and servants of the local community.”

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Siv Limstrand, the current priest at Svalbard Church, shows a list of those who’ve served during the church’s 100-year existence during a song and story gathering Friday. Photo by Elin Amundsen.

A three-day commemoration of the anniversary began Friday evening with a singing of Svalbard hymns, plus stories about the church’s history by  sharing of stories about the church by Anne Lise Klungseth Sandvik (deputy chair of the church’s council and a local resident for nearly 50 years) and Torunn Sørensen (the church’s deacon for the past 13 years).

Events on Saturday include a family Mass at noon at the location of the original church site a few hundred meters away and a walking historical tour beginning at 3 p.m. at the Skjæringringa memorial. On Sunday at the church there will be an Orthodox Liturgy at 9 a.m. (with confession beginning at 8:50 a.m.) by Russian Orthodox Priest Aleksander Volohan from Trondheim, followed by a Catholic Mass at 11:30 a.m. by Bishop Berislav Grgić.

A virtual commemoration of the anniversary is also taking place online, including a Facebook page for people sharing memories of landmark events and a featuring of the historic photo archive at Svalbard Museum’s website.

The church’s history actually dates back to 1907, a year after Longyearbyen was officially founded, when Bishop Peter W. Bøckman sent Norway’s Ministry of Church Affairs a request from the The Spitsbergen Coal and Trading Company Ltd. (which eventually became Store Norke), according to the book “Svalbard Kirke,” edited by Leif Magne Helgesen, the church’s priest from 2006 to 2018. It came during a turbulent time for the mining company, due to several strikes by workers unhappy with their treatment by management, and the bishop questioned if the request was sincere or an attempt to quell the unrest.

That question, plus others about Svalbard’s “no man’s land” remoteness and disruptions caused by World War I, contributed to debate and delays that stalled serious work establishing the church until 1919. That summer Edvard Sverdrup (a professor at the Congregational Faculty in Oslo and chairman of the main board of the Norwegian Lutheran Home Mission Society) and Karl Bay (director of the Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani) finally established a plot for the church “high and visible, a little above the town,” in Sverdrup’s description.

Construction began on May 25, 1921 and the final decor completed on Aug. 25, followed by its consecration three days later. Thorleif Fredrik Østenstad arrived in June as the church’s first permanent priest.

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Construction on the current Svalbard Church, which began in 1956, is underway before its official consecration in 1958. Photo courtesy of Svalbard Museum.

The church was burned down during WWII, as were most other buildings in Longyearbyen and Barentsburg as the two settlements were evacuated before Nazi forces occupied Spitsbergen. The foundation for a new church – the one currently standing – was set in 1956 and the new building consecrated in 1958. The silver altar candlesticks and baptismal bowl from the old church, among the few items saved during the evacuation, were placed in the new church.

But the church is more than just what happens in the building. Holiday Masses and other annual events take place at numerous outdoor and alternate locations such as a cabin the church owns in a valley east of town. During the Christmas season the priest, governor and a few others visit all of Svalbard’s settlements by helicopter to share holiday meals and fellowship with the diverse international populations that have their own traditions at each location.

Helgesen, in an essay at his website commemorating the church’s 1oo-year anniversary, asserts the local people and natural elements shaped the spiritual color of the church as much as the church did to those it reached out to.

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Leif Magne Helgesen, priest at Svalbard Church from 2006 to 2018, gives Communion during an outdoor Easter Mass in 2018. Photo by Mark Sabbatini / Icepeople.

“The wind could grab the church and try to send it out into the fjord as driftwood,” he wrote. “At times the wind howled and creaked in the old timber. Even in calm weather, the angels had plenty to do where they shuttled with prayers from Earth and up to the boss himself.”

“The best thing about being a priest on Svalbard was precisely to shine God’s blessing on both those who were present, those who were out for a walk, worked in the mine, were at sea or in the air, sat at home or wherever they stayed. God is not limited by a small wooden church with doors, walls and ceilings. The church is always bigger than what we see. The blessing applies to everyone who is in Svalbard.”

 

Svalbard Church 100-year-anniversary celebration schedule

Friday

7 p.m.: Svalbard hymns and stories, led by Anne Lise Klungseth Sandvik and Decon Torunn Sørensen. This is an open event, but space will be limited due to COVID-19 infection control.

Saturday

Noon: Festive Mass at the original church site.

3 p.m.: Historic walking tour by archaeologist Per Kyrre Reymert and Svalbard Museum Director Tora Hulgreen. Starts at Skjæringringa memorial.

Sunday

9 a.m.: Orthodox Liturgy by Russian Orthodox Priest Aleksander Volohan.

11:30 a.m.: Catholic Mass by Bishop Berislav.

About Post Author

Mark Sabbatini

I'm a professional transient living on a tiny Norwegian island next door to the North Pole, where once a week (or thereabouts) I pollute our extreme and pristine environment with paper fishwrappers decorated with seemingly random letters that would cause a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters to die of humiliation. Such is the wisdom one acquires after more than 25 years in the world's second-least-respected occupation, much of it roaming the seven continents in search of jazz, unrecognizable street food and escorts I f****d with by insisting they give me the platonic tours of their cities promised in their ads. But it turns out this tiny group of islands known as Svalbard is my True Love and, generous contributions from you willing, I'll keep littering until they dig my body out when my climate-change-deformed apartment collapses or they exile my penniless ass because I'm not even worthy of washing your dirty dishes.
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