Near the shore of Puruvesi, on Aittokangas hill, rises "the largest wooden church of Christendom" – a broad double-cruciform church whose high dome rests on a four-sided drum.
Look for: Step into the light-soaked room "built of pines": the pillars, two-tiered galleries and tie-beams are painted throughout to imitate marble in white, light grey and bluish veining.
Wooden church, double cruciform church. "The largest wooden church of Christian peoples", built on Aittokankaan hill in Jouhenniemi in Kerimäki near the shore of Puruvesi, is in ground plan a double cruciform church with short and wide arms. Above the hipped roof surfaces rises a tall dome borne by a four-sided necking section.
The church represents stylistically a kind of empire gothic with pointed arch and quatrefoil motifs. The vast but ordered and light-saturated "room built of pine logs" – pillars, galleries in two tiers, tie beams, and walls – are all painted in marble imitation, white, light grey, and bluish-veined.
The church hall's low-hanging ring chandeliers were designed by architect Josef Stenbäck in 1911. The bell tower on the church hill echoes the church's architecture.
Official description (Museovirasto) — machine-translated from Finnish
The Kerimäki Church in Kerimäki, Finland, is the largest wooden church in the world. However, it is not the tallest; Săpânța-Peri Monastery church in Romania, at 78 metres (256 ft), Ascension Cathedral in Kazakhstan, at 56 metres (184 ft) meters, and St. George's Cathedral in Guyana, at 43.5 metres (143 ft), are taller.
Protected buildingSavonlinna
Read more
Protected buildingSavonlinna
Read more
Protected buildingSavonlinna
Read moreSavonlinna
Read moreSavonlinna
Read moreSavonlinna
Read more
