St. Olaf's Church in Tyrvää is a late medieval

Late Middle Ages

The Late Middle Ages was the period of European history generally comprising the 14th to the 16th century . The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern era ....

 stone church

Fieldstone church

The term fieldstone church denotes a type of church, built using fieldstone of glacial erratics and glacial rubble. Such churches occur mostly in areas where the ice ages have deposited such rock material on the one hand, and where on the other hand there is little or no access to natural rock for...

 in Tyrvää, Sastamala

Sastamala

Sastamala is a town and municipality of Finland. It was created January 1, 2009, when the municipalities of Vammala, Äetsä and Mouhijärvi were consolidated into a single town....

, Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

. It was built approximately in 1510–1516 and burnt down by a pyromaniac

Arson

Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...

 in 1997.

The church was rebuilt by local people and the interior paintings were created by painters Kuutti Lavonen

Kuutti Lavonen

Kuutti Lavonen is a Finnish painter, photographer, and graphic artist, who has worked as professor at the Academy of Fine Arts . His poetry book Havahtumisia was published in 2005 by Kirjapaja....

 and Osmo Rauhala.

The reconstruction of the church is documented in the book St. Olaf's Church in Tyrvää

St. Olaf's Church in Tyrvää (book)

St Olaf's Church In Tyrvää – One Hundred and One Paintings is a book published in 2010 by Kirjapaja. In the book Pirjo Silveri describes how the medieval St Olaf's Church in Tyrvää, Finland was reconstructed by hand after it was burned in 1997. Finnish contemporary painters Kuutti Lavonen and Osmo...

by Kuutti Lavonen, Osmo Rauhala, and Pirjo Silveri.

External links

• Contemporary church painters create spirit of renovated 16th church, in Helsingin Sanomat
  Helsingin Sanomat
  Helsingin Sanomat is the largest subscription newspaper in Finland and the Nordic countries, owned by Sanoma. Except after certain holidays, it is published daily. In 2008, its daily circulation was 412,421 on weekdays and 468,505 on Sundays...