Håsjö nya kyrka

By the nineteenth century, settlement in Håsjö socken had moved away from the site of the old parish church, and the growing population needed more space. A new church was duly built at Västanede, roughly ten kilometres from the original, and completed in 1876. Its life was short: on the fourth Sunday of Advent in 1901, during a service, the building caught fire and burned to the ground, forcing the congregation back to the old church while repairs and rebuilding were considered.

Planning for a replacement began within a couple of years. A committee resolved to rebuild on the same site, engaging Stockholm architect A.E. Melander, himself a native of Jämtland, who designed the church in what he called the "Jämtland style", drawing on regional wooden church traditions including those of Näskott and Bräcke. The building is a three-aisled timber basilica with a raised nave, lower chancel, and a west porch, its exterior clad in tarred shingles with green-painted door and window surrounds. Melander also designed the tall, distinctive bell tower with its onion dome, modelled on eighteenth-century Jämtland examples. Builder P.O. Hellman of Östersund carried out the work, and the church was consecrated in April 1911 by Bishop Ernst Lönegren.

The interior has been altered more than once. A major renovation in 1962–1963 saw the walls reclad in pine panelling, the chancel enlarged, and the original three-lobed chancel arch simplified into a plain round arch, giving the space its current warm tone. Photographs and a model of the burnt 1876 church are kept in the sacristy, offering a glimpse of what was lost.

Several furnishings carry stories of survival and replacement. The altarpiece, painted in 1921 by Gabriel Strandberg (who also worked at nearby Hällesjö church), depicts Christ with four disciples. The pulpit is unusually positioned on the south side and bears a gilded crown of thorns rescued from the altar cross of the 1876 church. Two fonts survive: an older one, possibly by Johan Edler the Younger, saved from the 1901 fire, and a newer one from 1962 by silversmith Kerstin Öhlin. A handful of other fittings recovered from the fire, including a carved finial from the old pulpit and part of the original hymn board, are displayed near the entrance.

An organ had been ordered for the earlier church but had not yet been installed when it burned, sparing it from destruction; sources differ on its precise specification and later rebuilding history. The bells, cast in 1910 after their predecessors were lost in the fire, carry inscriptions reflecting on the church's turbulent history.