St. Knud's Church, Fredericia
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St. Knud's Church is a Roman Catholic church in the Danish city Fredericia.[1] It is a part of the Diocese of Copenhagen. It is built on the same site as the previous St. Knud's Chapel.[2] Its predecessor was the first Catholic church to be founded in Denmark after the reformation.[3]
It is named after Saint Canute, the patron saint of Denmark.
Fredericia was founded in 1650 by the Danish king Frederik III as a fortress town, to secure military access to the strategically important strait, Little Belt.[4][5] While the Catholic faith was outlawed in the country as a whole, most of the early inhabitants were German mercenaries, many of whom were Catholic.[6] In order to entice people to move to the new and poorly situated military outpost, king Christian V granted the city freedom of religion, for borth Christians of other denominations than the Church of Denmark and for Sephardic Jews, in 1674 and again in 1682.[2] The Catholic citizens would be allowed to worship, to have a permanent priest and to marry Lutherans, as long as they raised their children in the Lutheran faith.[7]
The first official mass was held in December 1674 in the home of lieutenant colonel van der Weghe,[8][2] although mass had been held privately by traveling Jesuit Priests earlier than that, by request of the German soldiers.[8][9] In 1685, the king gave permission for Catholics to be buried on one of the local cemeteries, on the condition that the burial would be without ceremony.[2]
On January 5, 1686, the king gave the local Catholic priests permission to build a chapel with small gravesite, which is where the current St. Knud's Church is situated. The chapel was finished in 1688 and supplied priests from the Diocese of Münster, who were also responsible for the maintenance of the building.[2]
The chapel, as well as the clergy house, library and garden were pawned by the crown in 1744, to pay a fine for allegedly forcing a young girl to convert to Catholicism, as well as sending her to become a nun.[8] The girl was the stepdaughter of a Protestant bell-ringer, and while her conversion was most likely voluntary, the scandal ostracized the Catholic congregation from the surrounding city.[10][11] During the proceedings, the king Christian VI, threatened to close the church, this was never acted upon, but the Jesuit priests who were still in charge of mass, were exiled from the country for illegal missionary work.[8][10][2][5] The exile and the buildings being pawned, effectively ended the use of the chapel for mass until the verdict was overturned by the new king, Frederik V in 1752.[5]