Oravaisten kirkko ja hautausmaa (Oravais kyrka och begravningsplats)

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

Oravainen church is one of the uniform neoclassical cross churches designed at the Yli-intendentinkonttori at the end of the 18th century and built under Carl Rijf, who built several churches in Ostrobothnia.

The churchyard, on the site of the parish's first church, contains the von Essen family vault, linked to the history of Oravainen ironworks, and numerous headstones forged by the blacksmiths of Kimo ironworks.

Oravainen church stands on the Karlsberget hill. The church, built in the 1790s, and the wooden bell tower, built in 1927 in the 18th-century style, are surrounded by a churchyard enclosed by a stone fence. Leading into the churchyard are wooden gate structures supported by pillars, resembling the gable end of a temple.

The neoclassical wooden church is equal-armed in plan, with internally chamfered corners. An octagonal tower rising from the crossing ends in a cupola. The entrance arm has a Doric temple-front motif, and the other arms have corresponding pilasters. The aumakatto roofs of the arms rise from behind the gable triangles of the arms. The arms of the cross are covered by wooden barrel vaults. The altarpieces are Crucifixion and Last Supper, painted by Johan Erik Lindh in 1819. The pulpit was made in the 1790s.

A vaivaisukko stands at the north-west gate of the church. On the east side of the church, along Kimontie, stands an old loan grain storehouse. The parish hall, designed by architect Asko Halme on the square built north-west of the church, was inaugurated for use in 1970.

Oravainen cemetery, enclosed by a stone fence and bordered by trees, lies north of the church on the site of Oravainen's first church. The cemetery contains headstones forged by the blacksmiths of Kimo ironworks and the von Essen family vault. Otto Mauritz von Essen (b. 1780), from the Eurs furiirinpuustelli parish, worked as bookkeeper at Kimo ironworks. Headstones are also found around the memorial to the old Oravainen church, located in the cemetery.

History

Oravainen, which belonged to the Vöyri parish, was founded as a chapel in 1676 and separated as its own parish in 1859. The present, third Oravainen church was built in 1795-1797 under the direction of Carl Rijf, a church builder and master builder from Pietarsaari, according to drawings prepared in 1793 by the Yli-intendentinkonttori. Rijf had been appointed official provincial master builder of Länsipohja in 1784. A site in the ironworks area at Kimo had also been planned as the location for the church. The church was restored in 1961-62, and the interior was painted in 1992. A new bell tower was erected in 1928 to the designs of Stenberg, a master builder from Vaasa, on the site of the bell tower destroyed in the Oravainen fire. In 1982 a new chapel, designed by architect Carl-Johan Slotte, was built south of the cemetery.