Snæfellsnes, Iceland · 2022
The Black Church
The black church at Búðir against the stark Icelandic landscape. Dramatic skies, volcanic rock, and the kind of isolation that strips everything down to essentials.
Without the Spiritual Fathers.
The story of Búðakirkja begins with Steinunn Sveinsdóttir — a woman who, in 1703, petitioned the King of Denmark for permission to rebuild a church on the Búðir lava fields after the original had fallen into ruin.
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The local clergy had abandoned the site. The bishop saw no reason to rebuild. But Steinunn — a landowner, a widow, a woman of means and will — went over their heads. She wrote directly to the king.
He granted her request. The church was rebuilt in 1703, funded entirely by Steinunn herself, without a single króna from the church establishment.
The inscription above the door reads: "The church is raised with no subsidy from the spiritual fathers, by Steinunn Sveinsdóttir."
The church is raised with no subsidy from the spiritual fathers, by Steinunn Sveinsdóttir
January 2022. Snæfellsnes, Iceland.