Örgryte gamla kyrka

A stone church with thick, possibly defensive walls was built on this site in the mid-1200s, a rectangular Romanesque building with a chancel and altar to the east. Some accounts suggest an earlier wooden church may have stood here as far back as the 11th century, though this rests on tradition rather than firm record. In 1528 Gustav Vasa ordered the parish to hold its services instead in the town of Nylöse, when the area was still open countryside outside the yet-unfounded city of Gothenburg.

After Gothenburg was established in 1621, Örgryte remained a rural retreat, and several prominent city families built summer houses here, some later being buried in the churchyard. A major rebuilding from 1730 under city architect Bengt Wilhelm Carlberg replaced the medieval chancel with a rounded extension and enlarged the windows. The old bell tower was demolished in 1748 and replaced by the present tower with its copper cupola. The north transept followed in 1775, and the south transept, completed in 1817 after changes of architect, ended up larger than its counterpart, leaving the building slightly asymmetrical.

The church's rococo ceiling paintings, begun in 1741 by the artist Johan Ross the Elder with his son-in-law Michael Carowsky, depict the Last Judgement and the Trinity above the chancel. The well-preserved wooden interior includes a neoclassical altar from around 1799, attributed to Carlberg, and a heavy Baroque pulpit, also thought to be his design, donated in 1780. The font, carved from red limestone in 1738, replaced a medieval original, while a richly decorated brass font basin, probably South German 16th-century work, survives alongside it. A silver communion chalice and paten from 1746, engraved with the Lamb of God, are reportedly still used in services.//The church has had several organs over the centuries; the current instrument, with nineteen stops, was installed in 1957, replacing an earlier Marcussen organ that was itself a 19th-century replacement for the original 18th-century instrument.

The churchyard contains the graves of several notable figures, including the camera manufacturer Victor Hasselblad and the author Henning Mankell, alongside bishops and other historical residents of the parish. A thorough renovation in 2018–2019 cleaned the ceiling paintings and updated the lighting, and the church reopened in 2019.