Rolf Kogstad

A Brief History of the Norwegian Seamen’s Church
By Rolf Kogstad - President of the Board of Directors

2003 marks the 125th anniversary of the Norwegian Seamen’s Church in New York, with just 11 of those years in our current Manhattan building.

The first Norwegian Seamen’s Church was started in New York on July 1st 1878, although the Seamen’s Mission itself dates back to 1864. Seamen’s missionaries were active in New York at several locations for a number of years even before that time. But it was in 1878 that the Seamen’s Mission in Bergen sent Ole Bugge Asperheim to establish a church in New York. He bought a large church on Pioneer Street in Brooklyn, which became the home for the church for the next 50 years.

In 1928 the church moved to First Place in Brooklyn. It was a big, beautiful building, and popular with the large Norwegian community in the Bay Ridge area, as well as with sailors from Norwegian ships in the Brooklyn docks. Then came the Depression in the thirties, when many Norwegian sailors were without food and shelter. The church was there to help them, especially “Tante” Klara Brevik, who became well-known among sailors around the world during that period.
During World War II the church – in many different ways -- helped thousands of people who were separated from their families in occupied Norway. After the war, the church continued to grow, and peaked in the sixties, when yearly visits to the church were over 100,000, and ship visits to New York area harbors were over 1500 a year. But by the early seventies the number of Norwegian ships calling in to New York fell to under 400. With fewer Norwegian crews, and shorter stays, it became difficult for seamen to visit the church, and it became more important for the pastors to visit the ships, instead.

At the same time, the colony in Brooklyn began to disperse, with families moving to the suburbs and newly arriving Norwegians settling in other parts of the metropolitan area. Ships rarely docked in Brooklyn any longer, and the beautiful Brooklyn church became too big and expensive. The heating bill alone amounted to over $25,000 per year. That’s when the move to Manhattan was recommended … as a more central point from which to serve the area. The first move, in 1983, was to the brownstone building on 49th Street at 2nd Avenue. There the number of visitors gradually increased from only 11,000 in 1985, to over 25,000 in 1989, at which point the church building became too small! So it was decided to sell the single brownstone on 49th Street, and buy two adjoining brownstones on 52nd Street, with the plan of converting them to a better and bigger church.

nfortunately, it became clear that the planned conversion of the two brownstones would not be possible, causing a large increase in the project cost . The $5 million cost of creating the new church was only minimally offset by the sale of the old building … at a point in time when the Seamen’s Mission in Bergen was experiencing its own financial challenges.

Those were difficult and trying times; but, all along, the unfailing faith and optimism of Pastor Oystein Halling inspired volunteers in all phases of the construction and fund-raising efforts. Throughout the construction period, he had to operate from temporary space in apartments.

Ulf Aanonsen, the office manager at that time, had the responsibility of coordinating contractors and payments. Talk about stress!
Well, the job was completed, but we ended up with some sizeable loans to repay. Finally, thanks to so many contributors, large and small, here we are today with minimal debts, and in a beautiful church, alive with people!

Many friends of Sjomannskirken think we’re financed by the government, although that is only partly true. The Sjomannsmissionen in Bergen does, in fact, raise funds in Norway, and also does get a contribution from the state. Those funds are used to cover administrative costs, all salaries, and some of the operating costs for all the Seamen’s Churches around the world. In our case, that means about half of the annual budget comes from Norway, with the rest coming from local donations and events.

The church was originally a home away from home for the many Norwegian sailors manning ships that carried goods and passengers around the world, and it still is so today. As the Norwegian Church Abroad, it is also a welcoming haven for many young students and au pairs, and for business people here on long or short assignments. It serves also as a cultural center with performances and exhibits by artists of Scandinavian background. A connection with their roots, culture and religion is important for people away from home – and Norwegians can find it at the Seamen’s Church.