St Catherine’s
Church
❧ A highway passes
through the town. Take
a turn off it and a minute
later a pastoral scene
opens up before you.
Between the Ylioppilaskylä student village and
a popular spa, a wooden
rectory with its garden, old
farm houses, traditional
falu-red barns, a verdant
churchyard and a medieval
stone church create
a tranquil setting.
The heart of an oldtime church village beats
peacefully at the centre
of a modern town. Layers
of the different eras blend
into one another, but
whatever the era, people
have the same needs for
intellectual challenge,
physical recreation, and
a peaceful soul.
Seven Centuries
❧ The site of St Catherine’s Church has been inhabited at least since the Iron Age. A significant
burial ground from the era of Viking raids and the
Crusades has been discovered in the sandy heath.
The earliest known written mention of St Catherine’s Church and its vicar is from June 1309.
Documents also tell us that Bishop Hemming
of Turku and Bishop Thomas of Växjö visited the
church in January 1351. The church’s present
shape dates from 1440–1460.
Various Forms of Catherine
❧ The medieval parish of St Catherine was part
of an important concentration of early churches
at the mouth of the Aura river, along with those at
Koroinen and St Mary and the Cathedral in Turku.
When the stone church of St Catherine’s was
built it increased the power of the church at a
time when it was the church administration that
kept order in the country. The Bishop and Chapter
positively promoted the building of churches and
oversaw a unified architecture.
As the centuries passed, the original parish of
St Catherine was broken up. In 1990 the parish
was divided: the part that was within the bounds
of the town of Kaarina (a Finnish diminutive form
of St Catherine, roughly St Kate) became Kaarinan
seurakunta or St Kate’s Parish; while the part that
belonged to the city of Turku was named Katariinan seurakunta or St Catherine’s Parish for the
church’s medieval patron saint, St Catherine of
Alexandria.
on the pulpit. The winged emblems are also repeated on the
processional crucifix on the
altar.
Stand at the altar and raise
your eyes to the choir arch and
you will see creatures holding a
banderol there too.
The late medieval crucifixes
were made by local craftsmen.
The figures on the organ loft
were painted by Jonas Bergman
in 1759–1760. The pulpit dates to
1654 and its carvings were made
by Mathias Reiman of Turku.
Welcome to Paradise
Winged Preachers
❧ On the north wall of the
church hangs a so-called
triumphal crucifix. Between
its outstretched arms, winged
creatures – an angel, a lion,
an ox and an eagle – carry a
banderol. These are traditional
depictions of the evangelists:
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
They appear again on the front
of the organ loft, this time in
human form and accompanied
by the other disciples. St John,
too, is among the sculptures
❧ The choir arch spoke a rich
pictorial language to medieval
churchgoers. The triumphal
crucifix above the central aisle
marked the beginning of the
choir that housed the altar,
which was considered holy.
To step up to the altar was to
approach God, so to pass beneath the crucifix was for them
like passing into Paradise, to
which the crucifix was the gate.
They believed Christ had conquered original sin, which had
been the cause of man losing
Paradise.
In the Shade of
the Tree of Life
❧ At the centre of Paradise,
God planted the Tree of Life,
and the Bible promises that
one day there will be a Tree
of Life in Heaven, too, by the
river of the water of life.
At the top of the choir vault,
medieval visitors would have
seen a diagonal cross of bricks
with flowers growing at its
centre. Like life-giving rivers,
the ribs of the vault spread out
from the cross, making the
diagonal cross a Tree of Life.
The paintings continue to
speak the same language.
Like their counterparts centuries ago, churchgoers of today
still take Communion under
the Tree of Life, by the rivers
of the water of life.
A complete entity in themselves, the paintings in the
choir vault were made by Peter
Henriksson of the so-called
Kalanti School between 1470–
1490. In the late eighteenth
century the paintings were
covered, but were once again
revealed in the early twentieth
century.
Gentle Mary
Clean Martyr
❧ Next to the altar, three
gentle yet strong women
commune with parishioners.
In an altar relief at the
choir window, light filters
through the Virgin Mary and
the Child Jesus. Artist Hannu Konola made this Gentle
Mary in 2000, using a rare
glass-moulding technique.
❧ South of the altar is a wooden statue
of St Catherine of Alexandria, her face
scorched by fire. From the thirteenth
century, Catherine of Alexandria was
among the most popular female
saints in Finland and many other
parts of Europe. Her image was on
the parish seal from as early as 1309.
According to legend, St Catherine
was born in Alexandria, Egypt, towards
the end of the third century. A learned
beauty, she converted to Christianity
and convinced her opponents
to do likewise. The Emperor of
Rome condemned her to the
stake, but the flames didn’t
burn her. She was then put to
death on a breaking wheel,
but the wheel fell apart (after which, that instrument
of torture became known
as a Catherine Wheel).
Finally, she was beheaded
and bled milk instead of
blood. The name Catherine
means ‘forever pure’.
The carved statue is
from the fourteenth century and shows influences
from Gotland. It suffered
some damage in a fire in
the late medieval period.
Fighting Angel
❧ Catherine of Siena (1347–
1380) turned her back on an
easy life as an Italian noblewoman and chose instead
to wear a crown of thorns.
Like an angel, she cared for
plague victims and fought for
the poor. Learned men came
to her for advice and her
teachings were collected in
book form. She influenced
the decisions of the Pope
and had an impact on the
international politics of
her day. Known throughout
Europe, Catherine of Siena
was canonised in 1461.
A fresco of St Catherine
was painted on the north
side of the choir window c.
1480, in what appears to
have been a commission
by the Dominican Friars
of Turku.
Simple Beauty
❧ Outside the church stands a yellow
‘chapel of blessings’ that is used for
funerals. Light enters it through high,
narrow windows. The simple beauty
of the building signals a period when
architecture had moved away from
the decorative richness of Jugend,
or Art Nouveau, to the simplicity of
Classicism and the clarity of Functionalism.
The chapel was designed by
architect Ingvald Serenius and dedicated in 1929.
Churchyard Mausoleums
❧ The mausoleums in the churchyard bear witness to the many connections that St Catherine’s Parish
has to the Royal Academy of Turku
and other members of the intelligentsia.
In 1785, the Bishop of Turku Jakob
Gadolin, formerly a vicar of St Catherine’s, had a red-brick family mausoleum built and roofed with traditional Finnish shakes (shingles).
The owner of Ispoinen Manor,
county treasurer Arndt Johan Winter commissioned an extraordinary
mausoleum in 1791. The octagonal
Neo-Classical building has a coneshaped roof with a star on top.
The mausoleum of Johan
Christoffer Frenckell, Printer
to the Royal Academy of Turku,
is a Neo-Classical tomb in the
shape of a small temple. It was
dedicated in 1818.
In Honour of the Law
❧ On the side of a sarcophagus
of red granite, two winged spirits hold between them a round
disk and two torches of sorrow.
Above them are the scales
of justice and palm fronds. A
snake swallowing its own tail
encircles the disk, symbolising
eternity. Engraved on the disk
is the year of the death of Matthias Calonius, 1817.
Matthias Calonius, a professor of the Faculty of Law at the
Royal Academy of Turku, was
the man who created a new
administrative model for the
Grand Duchy of Finland after
the split from Sweden in 1809.
Calonius’s Empire sarcophagus is the first memorial in Finland to have been financed by a
citizens’ collection. Apparently,
it was erected in 1822.
Floor Plan
This rectangular church building has
a nave and two aisles. The present
church was built during 1440–1460
and last renovated 1983–1984.
1 Stone sacristy and
medieval painted vaults
2 Medieval south porch
3 West porch, 1697–1699
4 Altar, with a medieval frame
5 Processional crucifix, c. 1500
6 St Catherine of Alexandria,
14th century
7 St Catherine of Siena,
late 15th century
8 Gentle Mary, 2000,
by Hannu Konola
9 Triumphal crucifix, c. 1500
10 Deacon, c. 1500
11 St Olav, c. 1500
12 Old altarpiece, 1759,
by Jonas Bergman
13 Pulpit, 1654.
Sculptures by Matthias Reiman
are later
14 Medieval cupboard door,
by the north door
15 Galleries, paintings, 1759–1760,
by Joonas Bergman
16 Votive ship, early 19th century,
by seaman Juha Talander
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15
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58
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16
2 11
● Unhindered wheelchair access
● Hearing induction loop available
in the building
B
A
Ground Plan
C
E
D
F
A
B
C
D
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F
Ingvald Serenius funeral chapel, 1929
Gadolin family mausoleum, 1785
Winter family mausoleum, 1791
Frenckell family mausoleum, 1818
Sarcophagus of Mathias Calonius,1822
Bell tower, 1826
St Catherine’s Church
Kirkkotie 46, 20540 Turku
More information about the Church:
www.turunseurakunnat.fi
Text: Tytti Issakainen | Photos: Timo Jakonen | Translation: Sarax.com | Layout: Erkki Kiiski | Print: Parish Union’s Printing Office