COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The latest addition to the Copenhagen skyline is a tall, 12-sided wooden building proudly bearing the sign “Denmark’s First Tiny Church.”
The 76-square-meter (818-square-foot) construction was unveiled Sunday in the Nordhavn – “North Harbor” – district on the outskirts of Copenhagen. After months of construction, it’s now an outpost of the local Evangelical-Lutheran Hans Egedes Church.
The parish’s leaders saw a need for extra spiritual space as the Danish capital is expected to grow by 20% over the next decade. In Nordhavn alone, the former fishing port is already seeing an influx of new housing projects, bringing with them an estimated 40,000 new residents over the next four decades.
“At the old days, you build a church, and the church will make a community, and then you build the city. Today, it’s the opposite,” project manager Johanne Dal-Lewkovitch said. “You build the city, and then there’s a need for a church. So it’s a little bit strange.”
In Denmark, a nation of 6 million people, more than 70% of the population are registered members of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church, but few Danes go to church on a regular basis. In fact, many go just once a year, on Christmas Eve.
But this tiny church is expected to be popular for weddings, baptisms, funerals and other more intimate services because of its cozy interior. Only 40 to 50 people can fit inside its 12 walls – one wall for each apostle – beneath a skylight.
“One of the important things is that we also are different compared to other churches,” parish priest Christian Bro said. “Here, we have a very, very small church and that creates a different room, another feeling.”
Sunday’s opening featured an outdoor church service, choral concert and communal dining.
“It’s one of the first in maybe a new modern church world, you can say,” Bro said.
The “Tiny Church” concept was first seen in Amsterdam suburb Almere Poort, where Dutch church leaders saw the need for a new location where believers could meet, talk and worship together.
Echoing early Viking churches once seen across this Scandinavian nation, the new church is built almost entirely from wood, including recycled timber donated by a local flooring factory. It’s insulated with newspapers, and the interior has been painted white to match the matte white rock surfaces seen in more traditional Danish churches.
While its home is in Nordhavn for now, its metal stilts mean that it can be easily picked up and moved elsewhere.
It can be “put it up some other place where there’s another need in another parish, maybe in Denmark,” Dal-Lewkovitch said.
Local churchgoer Katrine Sihm said that she has followed the project since its planning stages and is looking forward to attending services here.
“I love the sun and the sky connecting to the ground inside the church,” she said.
