Övertorneå kyrka

According to Wikipedia's account, the present church was built after an earlier chapel at Särkilax had been destroyed by spring floods, prompting a move to safer, higher ground on the eastern slope of the Särkivaara hill. Work on the new cross-plan church began in 1734 under the direction of Hans Biskop, who is also credited with much of the sculptural decoration inside, including the chancel screen with its distinctive pyramids. A separate wooden bell tower, of the Bothnian type typical of the region, was added in 1763.

The altarpiece now in place was painted in 1903 by Karl Tirén, after a work by Axel Ender in Molde Cathedral, Norway.

One striking story concerns a raid by Russian Cossacks during the winter of 1716–1717, when the church was plundered. Tradition holds that the parish priest, Johannes Tornberg, was beaten so severely with his own cane that he died two days later; the cane is said to survive in the church. A related legend claims the raiders made off with the parish bell, though this appears doubtful, since parishioners were still reporting the bell missing some forty years after the earlier 1617 flood that had originally swept it away. A second, larger bell was buried for safekeeping ahead of the attack and later passed to the newly formed Övertorneå parish in Finland when the border was redrawn in 1809.

The church's organ has an unusual history. It was originally built in the early seventeenth century by Paulus Müller for the German Church in Stockholm, where it was altered repeatedly over the years before falling out of fashion. In 1779 the Övertorneå parish acquired the instrument, reportedly through the intervention of a suspended local curate who came across it while pursuing a grievance in Stockholm. The main casework was installed in 1780, though the organ's pedal section was lost in the process, and a side unit (the Rückpositiv) went instead to nearby Hietaniemi church. Much of the organ's carved decoration is thought to be the work of Mårten Redtmer, the sculptor also known for adorning the warship Vasa.

The organ fell silent between 1934 and 1971, replaced temporarily by a newer instrument, before being restored and brought back into use. A further, extensive restoration project between 1991 and 1999 documented and rebuilt the organ to its historic condition, with a copy later installed in 2004 in the German Church in Stockholm, the building it had originally come from.