One hundred and sixteen people are killed…
May 1822 CE
Five hundred to six hundred people are in the church for the Pentecost service, including mothers with babies to be baptized, on a bright, hot day in early summer, May 26, 1822.
As the vicar, Iver Hesselberg, is coming to the end of his sermon on weather and fire as images of the Holy Spirit, there is a loud noise as fire breaks through the wooden wall.
The church is completely destroyed in the ensuing blaze.
The three doors all open inward, and the main, south door is soon blocked by fire.
Panic breaks out as the pressure of those trying to escape hinders keeping the doors open, and the north door itself blocks the exit for people descending from the north gallery.
Some fall in front of the doors and others climb over them.
People jump from the galleries onto those below, and some bodies are found crowded together in standing position.
At least one hundred and thirteen people are killed; a total of one hundred and sixteen is also mentioned.
The dead include sixty-nine women and thirty-six children under the age of fifteen, but only eight or ten men.
Unmarried young people and women traditionally sit separated from the men, who are closer to the south door and are able to escape through it before it became blocked, while other men, including the vicar, manage to save themselves by climbing out of the windows, although badly burnt by the melting stained glass.
Many bodies are unidentifiable.
The cause of the fire will never be discovered.
One theory is that a spark from a fire vessel in which the church servant brings embers to light the altar candles could have set fire to the wall.
Another theory is that someone had experimented with a burning-glass outside the church.
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