Kvitsøy kirke

"Weather-beaten and isolated lies Kvitsøy church on one of the islands of Kvitsøy. And so it stood from ancient times, a gathering place for people who lived scattered over all the islands".  This is how archaeologist Nicolaysen (1817-1911) begins his chapter on Kvitsøy church in his yearbook from 1886. This is truth with certain modifications. It was a church from early Norwegian medieval times approx. 1050 dedicated to St. Clemens and up until the Reformation, where it was reportedly dismantled and either used in the choir of Stavanger Cathedral or the monastery at Utstein. Excactly when the old church was dismantled and the new one built, is uncertain. The first church in the county of Rogaland built after the Reformation Today's church was built sometimes before 1591, making it the first church in Rogaland constructed after the Reformation in 1536, at least as far as we know today. It has been restored and rebuilt several times. The church has a baptismal font in soapstone from approx. the 1100s. It was originally used in the St. Clemens church, a small brick church that once stood in the vicinity of the stone cross at Leiasundet bay.