Kristina kyrka

The church was built as Sala grew into a town in its own right, after townspeople outgrew the older rural churches they had previously used. Its architect is unknown. The imposing tower, decorated with the blind arches typical of the period, still dominates the exterior, though the original tall spire and shingled roof were lost long ago.

In 1736 a devastating fire swept through Sala, destroying much of the town. The blazing spire collapsed into the church, crushing the vaults below. According to the account of the parish priest at the time, the whole building was engulfed within a minute. Rebuilding began quickly and the church was back in use within a few years, with a new tower cap added around 1749, thought to have been designed by Lars Larsson Steinholz, a master craftsman at the Sala silver mine.

Very little survives from the 1600s: only the two sandstone portals, north and south, remain from the original building, the southern one dated 1637 and decorated with restrained ornamentation typical of its age.

The interior is notable for its Art Nouveau decoration, unusually rare in a Swedish church, which has earned the building the nickname "the Rose Church". Among its furnishings are several ornate chandeliers, including two large candelabra of thirty arms each in the central aisle, decorated with flowers and topped with figures bearing banners; one is said to have been donated to the church in 1697. A wooden font bowl of Öland limestone, apparently dating from the 1600s, appears to be the original font that survived the fire, although its heavier wooden base is a later replacement, probably made in the early 1900s.

The altarpiece, showing Christ and the twelve apostles at the Last Supper, was a gift from Queen Ulrika Eleonora in 1738 and is thought to be the work of court painter Georg Engelhardt Schröder. Flanking it are two carved angels rescued from the 1736 fire, made by Daniel Kortz, a pupil of the noted sculptor Burchardt Precht; the Sala altarpiece angels are considered among his most significant surviving works. The organ case dates from an instrument completed in 1758 by Jonas Gren and Peter Stråhle, though the organ itself has since been replaced.