Nidaros Cathedral

About

Nidaros Cathedral, in Norwegian Nidarosdomen, stands in Trondheim over the grave of King Olav II, who brought Christianity to Norway and became the nation's patron saint after his death at the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030. Canonised the following year by Bishop Grimketel of Nidaros, Saint Olav has drawn pilgrims here for nearly a thousand years.

Work on a great stone church began under King Olav Kyrre around 1070, and the cathedral took shape across two and a half centuries until largely complete by 1300. Damaged by fires in 1327 and 1531, gutted in 1708 and struck by lightning in 1719, the building underwent a long restoration begun by Heinrich Ernst Schirmer in 1869, officially declared complete in 2001.

The oldest fabric of the cathedral lies in the octagon and its ambulatory, the original site of the high altar and of the reliquary casket of Saint Olav. Its design recalls the Corona of Canterbury Cathedral, while the choir was modelled after the Angel Choir of Lincoln, and a small well in the southern ambulatory was once fed by the spring at Olav's burial place.

Designated cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Nidaros in 1152 and of the Lutheran Diocese of Nidaros after the Reformation of 1537, the church seats about 1,850 and remains the place where new Norwegian monarchs are consecrated. Several thousand pilgrims arrive each year by the historic Pilegrimsleden.

History

Built between 1070 and roughly 1300, Nidaros Cathedral was the Catholic cathedral of the Archdiocese of Nidaros from 1152 until the Reformation in 1537, when it passed to the Church of Norway. The silver reliquary of Saint Olav was melted down for coinage by Christian II, and his remains lie in an unknown place beneath the cathedral. The 1814 elections to the Norwegian Constituent Assembly used this church as one of more than three hundred polling places across the country.

Significance

Today the cathedral is a popular destination of Evangelical-Lutheran Christian pilgrimage. Mass and the Divine Office are celebrated daily, and pilgrims who complete the journey along the Pilegrimsleden receive a pilgrim certificate. Olavsvaka, the wake of Saint Olav around the anniversary of his death at Stiklestad, draws many to the cathedral each year.