Oppdal Church

In Oppdal the church has a name: she is called Marit, Marit at Vang. Why this is so, no one seems to know, but everyone in Oppdal knows the name. Marit is a timber church clad with paneling. She was consecrated on March 12, 1651. The location of the church up in Vangslia was no coincidence; the site was the natural center of the parish. Just below lies the Vang burial field, one of Northern Europe’s largest burial grounds from the Viking Age. And here the roads from the south, west, and north met.

There may have been a church at Vang ever since Christianity came to Norway. The old stave church was dedicated to the English martyr king St. Edmund. For a long time, the people of Oppdal kept their royal letters of privilege in the church-documents granting tax relief because of road maintenance and concerning the duty of providing transport across Dovrefjell. The documents were stored behind a locked iron cabinet door in the wall to the right of the altar.

The altarpiece in Oppdal Church is a typical work from the latter half of the 1600s. It is read from the bottom upward, and it is the central axis that conveys the main message. On the predella there is an image of the Last Supper; in the first tier we see the Crucifixion; in the tier above, the Resurrection; and at the top we see the risen Christ, living and present. It is the message of Easter that is being told. The other figures in the altarpiece - Moses and John the Baptist, Peter and Andrew -are there to point to Christ. Such an altarpiece has several functions. One is to make the church beautiful. Another is to serve for instruction and teaching. The third is that it has a function within the church service.