The Sture Church

A decorated limestone entrance takes you through to the Sture Church, which was built in the 1480s. It was commissioned by Sten Sture the Elder, who was the regent of Sweden from 1470 to 1497 and again from 1501 to 1503, visiting Turku Castle a total of 16 times. The biggest medieval construction projects carried out in Turku Castle were realized during his time as regent. Both Sture’s and his wife Ingeborg Tott’s coats of arms are visible in the room: carved into the limestone doorway and painted on the wall above the altarpiece.

The Sture Church is one of the last monuments of Turku Castle’s Catholic era. It was meant for the inhabitants of not only the castle but also the surrounding area as well. The crosses painted inside circles on the church walls are signs that the bishop had consecrated the church with holy oil. In the past, there used to be twelve of these consecration crosses. Another reminder of the Catholic era is the piscina in the right corner of the altar wall. The piscina is a basin where the water used to wash communion vessels was poured after communion.

The rectangle-shaped Sture Church was originally a single-nave church with a groin vaulted ceiling. The vaults collapsed in the winter of 1614 due to a fire that severely damaged the entire Main Castle. Afterwards, the church was barrel vaulted, but eventually the vault was taken down in the 1700s when the room was turned into a storage space. The room was used to store such things as weapons, and grain for the distillery operating in the bailey. At the same time, the former banquet hall upstairs was turned into the new Castle Church, consecrated in 1706.

In Finland, medieval Catholic churches were usually decorated with paintings and sculptures. The saints’ statues belonging to the museum’s collection are displayed here in the Sture Church.

Catholic beliefs and customs had a major impact on people’s lives in the Middle Ages. Saints were highly respected and people would seek their guidance in different situations. They would, for example, pray for protection or help for a loved one’s sickness. Each profession, city and nation also had its own patron saint.

The wooden sculptures on display were originally painted. You can still see some remains of the original painted decorations on some of them, while some have been repainted later. Most of the sculptures are from the nearby churches, added to the museum’s collection in the late 1800s and early 1900s. None of the sculptures that remain can be said with certainty to have originally come from Turku Castle.