Ørland Church

Ørland or Viklem church is Fosen’s last standing medieval stone church. It burnt down in 1766 and again in 1854, so none of the Church’s original fixtures are preserved, but there are detailed descriptions of the church before the fire. We don’t know when the church was built, but excavations along the walls in 1971 indicate that the nave was built in the 12th century. The chancel is so wide that it probably dates to the late Middle Ages. After the fire in 1854 the church was rebuilt in the style that it is in today using drawings by the architect Christian Heinrich Grosch. Viklem was probably the main church for most of the Fosen coast from the advent of Christianity in the country well into the post-reformation era. Its strategic location at the entrance to the Trondheim fjord and the shipping lane was the perfect place for an early central church institution. The parish priest of Hitra, Johan Støren wrote about this in 1774, “There can be no doubt, that this place (Hitra), with most other parishes, have in the early Christian times belonged to Ørelandet, until later times where they became separate entities.” Åfjord and Jøssund became separate parishes from Ørland in 1588. In the 19th century the parishes of Nes, Stjørna, Bjugn and Agdenes also split off. The church that was erected here in the 12th century was therefore probably the centre of an enormous parish.