The Wicked Church

It may seem strange to connect some event on a P&O ferry crossing the English Channel with a church in a mountain area called Filefjell in the middle of Norway. But sometimes assosiations are as strange as the reality.
     This story began when I discovered a Norwegian dressed as a Swedish caricaturist is presenting us. Wearing a small rucksack where a norwegian flag is popping up. He was standing in front of the exchange office onboard. Since I was number four in that queue I was able to listen to the discussion in front of the window. 

     The fellow with his flag in the rucksack cried something like "complete madness". His english could not conceal an accent from the north of Norway. He was to present his complaints to the company, although the responsible for this ferry must be complete stupid. This was the only place in the whole world where you could not exchange notes of norwegian currency... 
     "You may never have heard of Norway? We used to conquer the British Isles every second weekend, you better know! We Norwegians descend from the wikings, while you lot obviously descend from the monkeys..."

     Neither sarcasm nor threats did help him exchange his norwegian money. The lady inside the window just pointed to a sign next to the opening. Norwegian "kroner" did not exist on the sign. Strangely enough all the other scandinavian currencies were accepted. I understood the feelings of my countryman. His national proud was obviously hurt, but never mind. The rest of the queue became rather aggresive, and he was pushed away.

Since I knew the habits - good and bad ones - of my countrymen, I searched for him after I finished my own exchange. The only highjacking of an aircraft in Norway until then, was due to serving lukewarm beer in the plane. The hijacker forced the plane to land, but the police prevented a drama and solved the crises by bringing four bottles of cold beer. Since I knew the hijacker had been a Norwegian - but could not say if he had been from the northern part of the country. To prevent any hijacking of the ferry - I invited this one to a pint of lager.  

     The beer calmed him down. In a way. It did not help that I was a fellow Norwegian, but I shall not repeat all his frustration during tre pints until we reached Dover. I left him when he asked me for the fourth and showed obvious signs of being boozed. 

     This quarrelsome and boozed Norwegian made me think of a church I had passed a month earlier. On a mountain crossing called Filefjell. I made a stop by the local church, of St.Thomas. This church represented a norwegian tradition I have never understood: to drink until pissed... Why is it that people staggering around pissed i streets, on dancing parties in the countryside or at holiday centers in southern Europe most likely are Norwegians? Regarding this behaviour, it is not strange that Norway even had a churdh that had to be closed in 1808 because of too much drinking. Even if Norway at that time belonged to Denmark, nobody can claim the Danes to be responsible for the madness happening around a small stave church between the valleys of Valdres and Sogn.

The first church concecreated St.Thomas was built as early as in the 12th Century. Old documents reveal that the location was an old pagan place of sacrifice - in the tradition created by pope Gregory the Great. It was the archbishop Øystein Erlendsson of Nidaros (later called Trondheim) who initiated the construction of the St. Thomas church. He did not name the church after the Apostle Thomas, the embodied sceptic, but in honour of someone who really believed, St. Thomas à Becket. The archbishop was in a hurry to call upon God's attention. His fate was about to copy the one of St.Thomas Becket: being cut down by the king's men. The archbishop Øystein had gambled on a wrong candidate for being king of Norway.

     When the kong Sigurd Jorsalfare died without a male heir in 1130, a civil war between possible kings started in Norway. When one of them, Inge Krokrygg, was killed in 1161, he too died without leaving a son. One contender was the illegitimated son of a long ago deceased king called Sigurd Munn - some sexual seducer. A local earl, Erling Skakke, was married to the daughter of the famous Sigurd Jorsalfare and claimed their little son, Magnus, as the legitimate king. But this arroused a lot of protests. A king had to be the son of a king! If the country gave way to sons from females, there could be a swarm of possible heirs to the crown... But Erling knew what to do. God's law was above civil law, so he made an agreement with the archbishop Øystein. If the church consecreated little Magnus as king and introduced an order of hereditary succession of families, Erling promised the church several benefits. A papal representative undertook the consecration of the boy as the king in the grace of God, which ment the grace of the local church. Because when Magnus Erlingsson became the first in Scandinavia to be crowned by the church this in return provided for the church to claim more taxes from its believers. 

     These benefits lasted until 1179. Then another illigitimate son of Sigurd Munn made his appearance. Sverre Sigurdsson had become leader of the "birkebeinere" who had rebelled against the hard taxations both from the church and the "party" of Erling Skakke called "baglere". Sverre Sigurdsson denied the legitimate behaviour of a church to install kings. 
    The archbishop let his ship join the battle along with the ones of Erling Skakke and his son, Magnus. He even promised - on his Gods behalf, that everyone who fought the battle along with them, was guaranteed a place in heaven. It did not help. In 1184 Sverre and his men won the battle. Then Erling Skakke and his son were both dead. Since the archbishop did not feel that a church on Filefjell was sufficient as a proposal to God for an extended life on the earth in stead of an eternal one in heaven, he ran away to England.

     Neither I nor the wikipedia can tell if the church of St. Thomas in the mountain area was built before the archbishop ran away or after his return. The archbishop did come back to Norway and ended his hostilities with king Sverre. Never-the-less the church of St.Thomas was there - on the traditional place where people from different valleys had met for centuries. Filefjell is still the easiest way to pass from the east to the west of the country and was the natural site for buying, selling, social encounters, paganry and devilry as well as christianity.

     The Black Death in 1349-50 decimated the population in Norway as well as in other countries. Especially around Filefjell since it was the most regular crossing in the mountain area. The church of St.Thomas disappeared behind trees and bushes that was left to grow peacefully some hundred years. The wooded area was not the only surroundings of the abandoned church. It became the target for a lot of myths. People could tell about hearing the sound of bells and hymns from behind the tangle of trees. Myths that kept alive stories of ghosts, trolls, wood nymphs and witches. 
     In spite of all the stories told, people from the communities around Filefjell returned slowly to their old marketplace by the church in Smedalen. Before christianity entered the country, people used to gather there on "syftesok", the 2nd of July to soften the gods, trying to have as much crops as possible. In the 17th Century the church joined in. A vicar called Bahr from the parish of Vang in Valdres told the congregates that on the 2nd of July they were to celebrate the holy bishop St. Svithun, killed in the 9th Century in England. This was called "Svitunsvake", which ment to keep watch for the deceased bishop during the night. To reward this effort, the saint would be so grateful that he helped to enlarge the crop even more than their pagan gods had made possible.

This innovative clergyman had the church sat in order and initiated a service in the church of St.Thomas every "syftesok", most likely to bless the day with some words of God. It was obviously needed according to a guidebook for travelling in Norway. This said that quite a few horses were exhausted, quite a few virgins offended, and quite a few fit and active men beaten. Unfortunately updated knowledge on catholic celebrations had escaped this protestant vicar. The day for celebrating St.Svithun had been changed to the 15th of July in England, but it was more complicated to move a pagan tradition than play tricks with saints. Therefore this "syftesok" or "Svitunsvake" continued to be celebrated on the 2nd of July around the church of St. Thomas. 

     I guess the clergymen had some trouble presenting holy words to young guys having waited a whole year to fight their antagonists from other valleys. But despite the fighting, the horse racing, promiscuity and heavy drinking - the church of St.Thomas was also recognized as a support to the sinners and the sick, if they payed their share. This made more and more people visiting Kyrkjestølen, as became the name of the site. Since the church itself only had room for some hundred, most of the activities happened outdoor. While someone inside recieved the sacrament, others strolled around focused on murder and fornication. In letters from the 18th Century people found Our Lord a strange fellow, allowing all such horror around his church.     

Naturally protests arrived, but not from Our Lord. The vicar Ruge in Slidre felt called upon to ban all the immorality around the mountain church at Filefjell. He admitted that the church of St.Thomas represented a "gold mine" to the vicar of Vang, but the profit should be better off financing a prison in Christiania (later Oslo). This would be more compatible with the activities which provided the income. This first official complaint arrived in 1747 at the ecclesiastical board in Copenhague, but the bureaucrats thought this vicar from Slidre envied his colleague in Vang. Besides - if St.Thomas was to be shut and derived because of "ungodly behaviour", there were more churches to suffer the same fate. To be on a safe ground, the ecclesiastical board ordered the vicar in Vang to instruct and discipline his congregation. The result of this disciplination reduced the profit from the activities from 473 to 10 Riksdaler during 40 years...          

     At the beginning of the 19th Century the tide turned. The income from the market at Kyrkjestølen regained its wealth. Then - in 1805 - a new letter arrived at the ecclesistical board in Denmark. This time from the vicar in a parish called Land, after his consultation with the District Sheriff and the bishop of the diocese. The content of this letter was rather harsh. The activities by the St.Thomas church "...support superstition... strengthen the infidel in his evil purposes... not a sanctuary, but a shelter for cattle and thieves..." This letter had consequences: The St.Thomas church was to be sold and leveled with the earth. The vicar in Vang managed to postpone the sale. Syftesok along with a service was held in 1808. Then the local Sheriff bought the church - and torn it down.

This was not the end of a church called St.Thomas. I was inside 180 years later. In a modern version on the identical site as the original. The locals missed the church on the festival area - maybe the social parties as well? 

     

          

      The new church was consecrated in 1971 to "ecumenical use - on the 2nd of July! Some years later the local newspaper "Valdres" wrote that there was established a commitee to breathe new life into Syftesok. The members hoped to get going on the 2nd of July 1990 because they guessed "a new generation has been raised in a more peaceful behaviour" and the moment had come to combine "more worldly activities to the celebra-tion of 2nd of July without the risk of life and limb". Maybe the idea originated from a responsible of cultural activities that at last found something to do?

     I left the new church of St.Thomas while the sky was rather cloudless. The church is no more a tared stave church among small, reddish cottages. Today the church is built in concrete and glass. The steeple obiously inspired from the old stave church. It has been compared with the wide-brimmed hat of a witch. A striking description on a church connected with both christian and pagan superstition.

     Maybe it was not by chance the first hymn presented at the small service I attended, was "The church is an old house, surviving even if the towers are falling..." 

    On my way downhill to the Sognefjord on the first day of July 1990, I discovered threatening clouds on their way towards the mountain area. I wondered how the next day would turn out at the Kyrkjestølene. 

                                        Love from Thor Thorstensen