Petäjävesi Old Church
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How it came to be
The people of Petäjävesi in central Finland had a long journey to the nearest church at Jämsä. In 1728 the Crown allowed them to build a graveyard and a small church at their own expense. The church itself went up about 35 years later.
Between 1763 and 1765 Jaakko Klemetinpoika Leppänen, a church builder from Vesanka, designed and built a cross-shaped church entirely of pine logs. It joins a Renaissance central plan to Gothic groin-vault forms worked in timber, a tradition particular to eastern Scandinavia. In 1821 his grandson Erkki Leppänen added the bell tower and enlarged the windows.
When a new church was built in 1879 the old one went out of use. Its interior remains well preserved. In the 1920s the art historian Josef Strzygowski drew attention to its value, and it has been restored several times since 1929. It was inscribed in 1994.
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