Ljusdals kyrka

The site is believed to have been a cult place in pagan times, and a church was first built here in the 1100s or 1200s. During the late medieval period the original building was extended into a rectangular hall church with two vaults and two southern extensions; traces of an old, bricked-up church doorway can still be seen in the plasterwork of the south wall.

A fire that broke out in the bell tower on the night of 15–16 August 1753 spread to the church roof, damaging the vaults, though the furnishings survived reasonably well. The south and west walls were reused when the church was rebuilt under Anders Romberg of Leksand, extended northward and eastward into a hall church with three star vaults and a north sacristy. A new bell tower was raised in 1757–58 under Per Jonsson of Rångstra, using a model that is still kept in the church; the bells lost in the fire were recast from the melted metal of their predecessors.

The exterior has changed little since the 18th-century rebuilding, but the interior was substantially reshaped from 1913–15, when architect Fredrik Falkenberg oversaw a restoration. The previously whitewashed walls and ceiling were decorated by the painter Yngve Lundström in an Art Nouveau style influenced by medieval church painting, and this period also brought the chancel stained glass and the present pews.

The most celebrated furnishing is the late medieval altar cabinet, a Flemish work made in Antwerp, though sources differ on its exact date, giving either 1501 or 1503. According to one detailed account, it was originally commissioned for Ovikens församling in Jämtland and only later sold to Ljusdal after Reformation-era clearances there; a copy of the cabinet was later made for Oviken by a local craftsman. The church's oldest object is said to be a triumphal crucifix from the 1400s, along with a chasuble from the same period. Two pewter candlesticks, attributed to the Stockholm maker Nils Nilsson Kröger around 1670 and said to be unique in Sweden, have reportedly featured on the television programme Antikrundan.

Other notable furnishings date from the later 1700s, including a pulpit by Magnus Granlund, painted by Paul Hallberg, and the altarpiece, altar rail and organ case. The gallery holds two organs of contrasting character: a Baroque-style instrument built in 1765 by Gren & Stråhle, later altered, and a Romantic organ built in 1931 by E.A. Setterquist & Son, now positioned behind the older case. A separate chancel organ was added in 1993 by Robert Gustavssons Orgelbyggeri.