Storkyrkan (literally “The Great Church”) is the oldest church in Stockholm, and is sometimes referred to as Stockholm Cathedral. Its original construction started in the 13th Century, but it wasn’t inaugurated until 1306. At first, like most Christian churches at the time, it was a Catholic Church, dedicated to St. Nicholas. But the Protestant Reformation came to Sweden in the 16th Century, and Storkyrkan joined the new Church of Sweden. The Reformation was slow to develop in Sweden, but is generally considered to have begun in 1527. Gustav Vasa, the Swedish king, had been on the outs with the Pope (Leo X) since taking the throne following the 1521 War of Liberation, which separated Sweden from Denmark. The Pope supported Danish King Christian II, who had triggered the war by perpetrating the Stockholm Bloodbath in 1520, just days after being crowned King of Sweden (in the Storkyrkan Church, of all places). A major contributor to the Reformation was Olaus Petri, a church official who had the first-ever Swedish-language mass sung (also in Storkyrkan) in 1525. Petri also worked on the translation of the Bible into Swedish, and eventually became Dean of Storkyrkan (somewhere among all this, Gustav Vasa got mad at him and sentenced him to death, but he got over his anger before the sentence could be carried out).

The Storkyrkan Church occupies a strategic location between the Royal Palace and Stortorget, Gamla Stan’s main square. It’s undergone several renovations over the centuries, acquiring its present Baroque exterior in the 18th Century. Several coronations have taken place in the church, though there was a break following the coronation of Christian II (the Bloodbath left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth). The last monarch crowned in the church was Oscar II, in 1873. A number of royal family weddings have also been performed in the church. The most recent of these happened in 2010, between current heir apparent to the throne, Crown Princess Victoria, and Daniel Westling. Storkyrkan is not generally used for royal family funerals, but funerals for well-known Swedish personalities are sometimes performed here. An example would be the 2002 funeral for beloved author Astrid Lindgren, creator of the Pippi Longstocking stories (Pippi Långstrump in Swedish), among many others. Lindgren’s funeral was as close to being a state funeral as it could be, without actually being one.

On the south side of the church, between the church and the backside of the Nobel Prize Museum, there is a courtyard with some views of the church exterior.


On entering the church, one is confronted with a number of impressions, the first being one of brick. The church was built principally of red brick, which was probably whitewashed at the time. The whitewash was removed during a renovation in the first decade of the 20th Century. It was thought that this would give the church a more “medieval” look, even though the church was probably whitewashed in medieval times. Another impression might be of some interesting designs painted in some of the vaulting. This has also been restored, though in this case the designs actually were original, thought to date back to around 1346.


Many interesting decorative features are to be found throughout the church, as well as an assortment of monuments, probably commemorating (and paid for by) various aristocrats.



One decoration that seemed unusual was a model of a ship, suspended from the ceiling. This is something called a “votive ship”, and apparently they aren’t that unusual in Scandinavian countries (they can be found in other parts of Europe as well). Votive ships are gifts to churches from shipbuilders or seamen, usually either to request good fortune, or to give thanks for survival of some difficult seagoing episode. This ship is a copy of the original, which is one of the oldest in the world (17th Century), and is kept in Stockholm’s Maritime Museum.

Probably the most striking artwork in the church is a large sculpture of St. George battling his dragon. It was commissioned by Sten Sture the Elder, regent of Sweden from 1470 until 1503 (minus four years for the reign of John II, from 1497 to 1501). Sture commissioned the sculpture to commemorate his victory over the Danish army in the Battle of Brunkeberg (1471). The sculpture is thought to have been a work by an artist called Bernt Notke, about whom little is known. Including its plinth, the sculpture is more than 20 feet tall, and is made of oak, with accents of metal, leather, parchment and moose antlers. There were originally a number of companion sculptures, but only one survives – it depicts a princess who has her hands clasped, probably praying to be rescued. The sculpture was inaugurated in 1489.

The church’s main altarpiece is called the “silver altarpiece”, and was donated in 1652. It came from the workshop of Eustachius Erdmüller in Hamburg, and is made of ebony and silver.


On either side of the nave there are some elaborate structures which are hard to miss. They are all made mainly of gilded wood and were constructed between 1698 and 1702, during the Baroque era, by the same man, Burchard Precht. Two of them are royal pews, conspicuous seating areas bookending the nave which are reserved for the royal family (you can tell by the giant golden crowns on top of them). They were built by Precht but designed by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger. Precht designed the third structure, however. This is the church’s pulpit.



The church’s organ was installed in 1960, but its façade dates back to 1789.

Also found in the church is a painting called Vädersolstavlan (Swedish for “The Sundog Painting”). A sun dog (also called a parhelion) is an atmospheric phenomenon in which a halo can be seen around the sun, possibly with bright spots appearing at points along the halo. Sun dogs are created through interaction of sunlight with ice crystals that are suspended in the atmosphere (moon halos are a nighttime version of this). Vädersolstavlan depicts the occurrence of such an episode which was observed in Stockholm on 20 April 1535. It was painted that same year, commissioned by Reformation figure Olaus Petri, during a time when Sweden was breaking up with both Denmark and the Catholic Church, and when King Gustav Vasa was clamping down ruthlessly on conspiracies, both real and imagined. Petri was disturbed by the sun dogs that were observed, interpreting them as a sign from God whose meaning he could not decipher. He thought it possible that Sweden was being told that it was heading in the wrong direction. This led to a falling out between Petri and the king, and Petri’s eventual death sentence (which was later rescinded).

Because of all this, the painting is considered to be a significant artifact in the history of Sweden. And not only for these reasons – the painting also shows a reasonably faithful depiction of Stockholm as it appeared in 1535. It’s not photographically accurate – the sizes of important buildings such as the Storkyrkan Church and the Tre Kronor Castle are exaggerated, but most of the buildings’ details are considered to be accurate. The depictions of the sun dogs are not considered particularly accurate, though. For one thing, sun dogs from different times of the day are all shown on the same painting. They also necessarily had to be painted from memory, and a lack of understanding of the phenomenon led to many details being depicted incorrectly. But the painting does make the case that something very unusual happened on 20 April 1535.

An additional detail about the painting in the Storkyrkan Church: it’s not the original painting. This is a copy of the original, painted by an artist named Jacob Elbfas in 1636. This was verified (from the age of the wood) during a restoration of the painting in 1998-99. It’s not known what happened to the original, but it appears to be lost. But the 1636 copy is thought to be as accurate a copy as could be made in 1636, and therefore remains historically significant.

Eventually, Nella got to a point where she was ready to move on to see something else.

With much left to see and not much time to see it in, I had to agree, and we left the church to find lunch and take one more look around Gamla Stan.

With our remaining time in the day (and in Stockholm), we judged that we would be able to visit one more of the city’s main attractions, and in accordance with good reviews we’d seen in the guidebooks, we ended up heading for Stockholm’s Museum of Modern Art.