Finn Bryn designed Molde Cathedral after winning a 1948 competition for a new church in Molde. The foundation stone was laid in 1953, and it was consecrated on December 8, 1957, at a cost of about 3 million kroner. It is a white brick basilica with a central aisle and a second aisle on the north side only. A free-standing square bell tower stands at the southwest corner and is about 200 feet (60 meters) tall.
The first church on the site was a wooden cruciform building of 1662. It served as an election church in 1814 for the Norwegian Constituent Assembly. A cannonball fired in a holiday salute on May 17, 1885, struck the tower and started a fire that destroyed it. A neo-Gothic wooden church of 1887 burned during the bombing of Molde on April 29, 1940.
It became a cathedral in 1983, when the Diocese of Møre was created.
Comments