ARCHITECT ATLAS
Loading atlas
Church of the Holy Spirit (Helligåndskirken)

Church of the Holy Spirit (Helligåndskirken)

Hans van Steenwinckel the Elder

Photo: Ib Rasmussen · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Client / Owner
Bishop Johannes Krag
Year
Completed 1296
Access
Public
Typology
Spiritual
Style
—

The Church of the Holy Spirit, or Helligåndskirken, is an active parish church of the Church of Denmark in Copenhagen. In 1296 Bishop Johannes Krag built a hospital known as a House of the Holy Ghost, and a small church was later built beside it. In 1469 King Christian I converted the hospital into an abbey, and in 1474 Pope Sixtus IV recognized it as part of the Order of the Holy Ghost, modeled on Santo Spirito in Rome.

The abbey had four wings around a courtyard, and the church grew from the south wing. It originally had no tower. Construction began in 1520 but stopped after the Reformation, and the abbey was decommissioned in 1530. Work resumed in 1582 under Christoffer Valkendorff, and a spire was installed in 1594, attributed to Hans van Steenwinckel the Elder.

The church burned in the Copenhagen Fire of 1728.

Comments

  • Loading comments…
Be kind. Anyone can flag a comment for review.

Sign in

or

Your profile

3 to 24 letters, numbers, underscores or periods. It’s shown with your comments.

Save to list

    Edit information

    We look the building up on Wikipedia for you. Architect Atlas lists buildings that have their own Wikipedia article: our test for notoriety and our source of truth.

        Typology
        Style (one to three)
        Photo (shown in a 4:3 frame)

        Drag and zoom to frame the building well. New photos are checked before they appear.

        Every change is checked before it goes live: facts against Wikipedia, photos by eye.