St. Mary’s Church: A Medieval Dominican Parish Church in Sigtuna, Sweden
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Sweden
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- Swedish
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page19 sections
History
St. Mary’s Church is an active Lutheran parish church in Sigtuna, Sweden, built by the Dominican order in the early thirteenth century in a transitional Romanesque-Gothic style. It formed part of a Dominican convent and is the oldest of Sigtuna’s churches that remains in active use. It is also the only surviving and active medieval Dominican church in Sweden, as well as the only medieval church in Sigtuna to survive the Reformation.
Foundation and Dominican Use
The Dominicans received land in Sigtuna in 1237 and began building the church probably around 1240. The order was a Catholic religious community founded by Saint Dominic, whose medieval convents combined religious life with preaching, study, and education. St. Mary’s Church was therefore established as part of a larger convent complex rather than as an isolated parish building.
The church was consecrated in 1247, when only the chancel, the part reserved for the altar and clergy, had been completed. Work probably ended around 1255, the year Jarler, Archbishop of Uppsala, was buried in the church. The Dominican convent later became prosperous and served as an educational center, but its importance declined during the Late Middle Ages.
Reformation and Parish Use
In the sixteenth century, Sweden’s Reformation transformed the country’s religious institutions by adopting Lutheranism and dissolving Catholic monasteries and convents. The Dominican convent at Sigtuna was dissolved, and King Gustav I Vasa ordered its buildings, along with many other churches, to be destroyed. Bricks from the demolished convent were reused in construction at places including Svartsjö Palace and Venngarn Castle.
St. Mary’s Church survived the destruction and became a parish church. The other medieval churches associated with Sigtuna survive only as ruins, leaving St. Mary’s as the town’s sole surviving medieval church still in active use.
Medieval Expansion and Later Repairs
After 1280, the church was expanded and partly remodelled. A sacristy was added, the exterior walls were raised, and the roof was heightened. Around 1289, King Magnus I Ladulås financed a copper roof, although that roof was destroyed in later centuries. The church’s main nave also received a flat brick ceiling after 1280, replacing earlier vaults or planned vaulting. The precise date of the vaulting is uncertain and may fall in the fifteenth century.
From the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, the building underwent repairs rather than major alterations. Its poor condition in 1641 led the Swedish government to require the parish to renovate it. These interventions helped maintain the church as a functioning place of worship while preserving its medieval structure.
Restoration and Modern Use
A major restoration in 1904 and 1905 exposed medieval wall paintings and included their conservation and supplementation. Between 1966 and 1971, Bengt Romare and Jerk Alton directed a modernization of the interior to adapt it to contemporary Protestant worship. The church remains a Lutheran parish church within Sigtuna Parish in the Archdiocese of Uppsala and is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
St. Mary’s has protected sacred-monument status under Chapter 4 of Sweden’s Cultural Heritage Act because it was built before the end of 1939. Its continued use combines a medieval Catholic foundation with later Lutheran worship and successive phases of repair, restoration, and adaptation.
Remains
St. Mary’s is a three-nave brick hall church with a raised central nave and two aisles. Its transitional Romanesque-Gothic design brings together the heavier forms associated with Romanesque architecture and the pointed, vertically emphasized forms of Gothic building. The church is the earliest known brick church in the Lake Mälaren area and one of the earliest brick churches in Sweden, reflecting the Dominican contribution to the wider adoption of brick in a region where fieldstone had previously been common.
Plan and Exterior
The four-bay central nave joins a two-bay chancel that ends in a straight eastern wall rather than an apse. The chancel retains Romanesque features and has three tall, narrow lancet windows in its east wall. The plan was altered repeatedly during construction. On the west, a deep stepped portal has richly moulded brickwork, while the façade also contains Gothic windows, blind arches, and an intricately decorated gable. The gable niches were painted white against the red brick, and the portal’s brickwork shows possible northern Italian influence.
The interior walls are unplastered, leaving the brick construction visible. The joints between the bricks were painted white, creating a contrasting pattern across the interior. The main nave’s flat brick ceiling belongs to the church’s later medieval development and represents an unusual solution when compared with the wooden ceilings used in many other churches.
Altarpieces and Religious Images
High Altarpiece
The gilded late-Gothic high altarpiece is a polyptych, an altarpiece made from several joined panels, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Its central scene shows Mary’s coronation as Queen of the Church. The side wings depict the Annunciation and the Visitation, while gilded figures represent Saint James the Apostle, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Saint Peter, Saint John the Evangelist, and Saint John the Baptist. The oldest figures date from the fourteenth century, and the altarpiece reached its later medieval form in the fifteenth century. It was made in northern Germany, with the carved figures described as a Lübeck work.
Northern Aisle Polyptych
A second polyptych stands in the northern aisle. It was probably made in Sigtuna or elsewhere in Sweden around the fifteenth century. Its figures include Saint Eric, Saint Barbara, Saint Peter, Saint Mary Magdalene, Saint Paul, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, and Saint James the Apostle. The ensemble also contains a Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist, and Saint Olaf.
Chancel Images
A locally made triumphal crucifix hangs in the chancel arch, with a figure dating from around 1500. A figure of Saint Dominic is mounted on the chancel wall, and the church also contains a bust of Saint Catherine. The stained-glass window above the high altar was made by Sven Bertil Svensson and installed in 1983. Its upper section represents the Holy Trinity, while its lower section shows the life of Mary, giving it the informal name Mary Window.
Tombs, Font, and Pulpit
Archiepiscopal and Episcopal Tombs
The chancel contains elaborate niche tombs for Jarler, Archbishop of Uppsala, who died in 1255, and Bishop Petrus Filipsson, who died in 1341. Jarler’s niche tomb represents an unusual form of grave in Swedish ecclesiastical architecture and connects the surviving interior with the church’s early Dominican period.
Baptismal Font
The baptismal font in the chancel dates from around 1200, making it older than the present church. It may originally have stood in one of the nearby churches that now survive as ruins.
Pulpit
The pulpit dates from 1647. Its decoration presents Christ as the Saviour of the World, surrounded by the four Evangelists and Saint Peter, linking the post-Reformation interior with the church’s continuing use as a place of worship.
Organs, Paintings, and Bell
Chancel and Gallery Organs
Organs made by Åkerman och Lund stand in the southern part of the chancel. The fourteenth-century stone known as Rickebystenen is positioned behind them, while the southern wall displays a series of medieval wooden sculptures.
The western gallery contains the main organ, whose façade dates from 1747. The instrument was extensively restored and rebuilt, with its re-inauguration held in autumn 2000. It now has 24 stops, two manuals, and a pedal division.
Medieval Paintings
Above the main organ is a fifteenth-century painting called the Throne of Mercy. This Christian image of the Trinity shows God the Father seated on a rainbow and holding the crucified Jesus, with the dove representing the Holy Spirit above Jesus’ head. Medieval wall paintings also survive inside the church, alongside reproductions made during the restoration of 1904 and 1905. The imagery includes another Throne of Mercy and a Crucifixion accompanied by Saint Dominic, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Francis of Assisi.
Russian Bell
One of the church bells was made in Pskov and is of Russian origin. It was taken as loot during the Ingrian War, an early seventeenth-century conflict between Sweden and Russia in the region of Ingria.
