Hietaniemi kyrka

A church has stood on this site on the Torne älv since 1617, close to the border with Finland; until the border was redrawn in 1809 the church served worshippers on both banks of the river. The building destroyed in 2023 was constructed between 1745 and 1747 by the master builder Hans Biskop from Kronoby in Ostrobothnia, replacing an earlier structure judged too dilapidated to repair. It was a red-painted, panel-clad timber church with an octagonal, elongated nave, a chancel to the east, porches on the south and west sides, and a sacristy to the north, all covered by a tall, steeply hipped shingle roof with spires and weathervanes. A separate bell tower, 37 metres high, was completed in 1773.

The interior held furnishings largely made by Hans Biskop himself, including the altar rail, pulpit and decorative pyramids on the front pews, alongside an altarpiece painted in 1826 by J A Hedman. The church organ was said to have originated as a chamber organ from the 1608 instrument in the German Church in Stockholm; further parts of that historic organ are reported to survive in Övertorneå kyrka.

Among the church's bells was one with an unusual history. A bell bought for the church in 1688 was seized by Russian raiders who plundered Hietaniemi in 1716. Nearly two centuries later, in the 1880s, the bell was reportedly traced to a chapel near Saint Petersburg, and in 1885 it was returned to the parish as a gift. Three bells, including this so-called Russian bell, hung in the tower until the fire of 2023, when fragments of the bells and a handful of objects, including four church keys and three chandeliers, were saved from the flames.

The church and its bell tower burned down completely during the night of 26 September 2023; the fire took hold in the tower before spreading to the church roof, and firefighters were unable to save the building. No crime was suspected. In January 2025 the parish decided to build a new church on the site, broadly recalling the appearance of its predecessor but with roughly half the capacity. Archaeological investigation of the site, required before any rebuilding, has reportedly revealed graves beneath the former church, with some suggestion of remains dating back as far as the 14th century.

Since the fire, Hietaniemi kyrkstuga, a building outside the old churchyard wall, has served as a temporary place of worship in place of the lost church.