From church to museum and back again

The de-sacralization and re-sacralization of Kinnarumma's old wooden church

Authors

• Erik J. Andersson Åbo Akademi University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6334-4597

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.126742

Keywords:

religious heritage, Church history, wooden churches in Sweden, desacralization, resacralization

Abstract

In the small village of Kinnarumma in western Sweden an old wooden church was replaced by a new church buildning in the early twentieth century. The old church was de-sacralized by being moved to an open-air museum in Borås and used there for exhibitions and the storage of museum objects. The need for more church premises in the city led to the re-sacralization of the old church in 1930. The transition of Kinnarumma’s old wooden church to museum object, its museumification, was an expression of change in religious heritage, and its re-sacralization expressed an unchanged part of the same heritage.