CHURCH

Botkyrka church is a church building in northern Botkyrka municipality. It is a parish church in Botkyrka parish in Stockholm's diocese. The first church on the site was a wooden church erected in 1129, the present stone church dates back to 1176. At the church there is, among other things, a copy of the burial ground after Botvid's brother Björn, the church's builder - the so-called "Botkyrkamonumentet" from about 1150, the original is kept at the Historical Museum.

Botkyrka church is medieval. From the beginning it was called Bothwidiia Kirkia after the martyr and patron saint of Sankt Botvid. Botvid died some time during the 1120s, and in 1129 his brother Björn built a wooden stave church on Hammarby farm estate near Lake Aspen in the present northern Botkyrka. The wooden church was replaced by Bothwidiia Kirkia, a stone church in Romanesque style with round arch windows and apse. In 1176, the church was inaugurated by Stefan, the first Archbishop of Uppsala together with Vilhelmus, the bishop of Strängnäs. There is nothing left of the original wooden church but probably it was in the same place as the current church building.