HUITTINEN CHURCH

The Huittinen church is open from 2 June onwards and a guide is present on weekdays and Sundays, from 11 am to 5 pm.  Closed on Saturdays.  Admission is free.

Kirkkotie, 32700 Huittinen

Tel. 02 560 1618

During the summer time Huittinen Church is part of the road church network, meaning it is open to passing visitors.

The church is on a hill named Karsatinmäki.  The name is older than the church, and the roots of the name imply that there was a pagan sacrificial site on the same hill before the church.  Churches were often built on such sites in the Middle Ages - indeed, in a letter written in 1229, the Pope instructed people to take pagan worship places into use of the Church.

As with most churches built in the Middle Ages, the church was originally rectangular in shape and built facing in an east-west direction.  It originally had two parts, the parts which are now the centre section and the eastern section, and the altar was on the end wall of the eastern section.  The entrance was at the western end, but when an armoury was built on the southern wall in 1647, a new entrance was also added there on the southern wall.

In the 1700s it was still the custom to bury the priests and other significant members of the society under the church floor.  In Huittinen this custom ended in 1794. The most famous, among those buried beneath the floor, is probably Nils Idman the Younger, who was the vicar of Huittinen 1749-1790 and was also known for his linguistic research.