Grue church

About

The current church was built on Vollermoen, a hill on the southern edge of Kirkenær town centre. The church was designed by H.W.F. von Linstow, the castle architect, who at the time was preparing model drawings for churches in the countryside. The drawings were adapted and reworked by his pupil Ole Peter Riis Høegh, who later became a city conductor in Bergen and whose father died in the fire. The church was roofed in 1825, but then work was halted for a couple of years due to funding problems. Interior work began in April 1828, and the church was consecrated on 28 September the same year.

Grue church is a long church in plastered brick.  It has Gothic, or pointed-arched, windows, but stylistically it has hardly anything in common with the churches we otherwise call neo-Gothic, many of which were built from the 1850s onwards. So the characterisation on Arkitekturhistorie.no is more apt: "a simple style influenced by classicism with elements of Gothic (pointed arched windows)". A relatively large church: 47 by 18 metres, 500 seats. The west tower with its dome has almost Byzantine associations. However, the church's appearance is partly due to later changes.

The church was rebuilt in 1864, partly due to structural weaknesses and the need for heating. On that occasion, the entire roof structure was renewed, and the interior was changed from barrel vaulting to visible rafters with cloverleaf ornaments. The interior of the church was thoroughly refurbished in 1873-75 and was decorated according to the taste of the time, including a new altarpiece and pulpit. The exterior of the church was also refurbished in the 1930s, and it was extensively restored in 1975-77.

Interior and furnishings
Inside, there is an organ gallery within the porch (tower base), and the choir floor is raised a few steps above the nave floor. The chancel opens to the full width of the nave. It is surrounded by sacristies, so that the entire body of the building has the same width.

Linstow also designed the pulpit, which was constructed by master builder Jens Wessel for the opening of the church. The altarpiece has a cross with gold leaf on a blue background. From 1875 until the aforementioned restoration, however, the church had another altarpiece with an image often referred to as "Jesus with outstretched hands", painted by Christen Brun. This picture was removed from the frame and hung in the porch. Beneath the picture in the tablet was a quotation from Matt. 11, 28: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." The baptismal font (1874) in red granite was designed by Wilhelm von Hanno and made in his workshop.

The ore from the bells in the burnt-down church was moulded into the new ones. Bell moulder Anders Riise did the work in 1826, but delivery and payment were not arranged until 1828. The current organ was installed in 1998 after a lengthy fundraising campaign. It was built by Brødrene Torkildsen. The municipality reports that the church received a new exterior roof and new sound equipment in 2009, and in 2010 it received a new antependium, sewn by Ella Rismoen on the model of an original from 1828.

When it comes to Grue church, many people think of the tragic fire on the first day of Pentecost in 1822, which is considered to be our worst fire disaster. A memorial stone in the cemetery states that 113 people died in the fire, but Wikipedia uses the number 116 and suggests that there may have been 117, and according to Store norske leksikon there were 113 from Grue and four outsiders. The scale of the disaster was related to the fact that the doors were turned inwards so that people could not get out in the panic that ensued. Particularly serious was the fact that one of these doors blocked the stairs down from a gallery. In the aftermath, it was decided to hinge the church doors so that they faced outwards, which increased safety, although it affected a number of old portals, which were brutally treated. The fire in Grue is otherwise treated literarily/philosophically by Peter Wessel Zapffe.