It has been a monastery, police-station, prison, restaurant and nightclub, and the main building of a major farm. It is claimed that it has even been a brothel.
Located in Calahonda, Mijas Costa, El Campanario is, today, as far from a brothel as one can possibly be. It is, in fact, a church, The Norwegian Seamans’ church on the Costa del Sol. It is also a guesthouse with 12 en suite rooms, and a fully equipped conference centre, with a capacity for 35 people.
Opened five years ago, it is considered the ‘best seamans’ church in the world’, by its users. The congregation amounts to about 20,000 Norwegian residents.
“We cover the whole coast, from Nerja to Algarve in Portugal,” says Steinar Lindvig, the resident priest.
We visited El Campanario one Saturday afternoon in May. More than 50 guests were sitting by the tables in the patio, eating rice-porridge and drinking juice. Eating porridge on a Saturday has become a tradition in Norwegian seaman-churches all over the world. It is, in a way, a trade- mark for the church, together with wafers with jam.
Johan Offerdal, who, together with his wife Inger Marie is in charge of the cafeteria, told us that last year, they served more than 3,000 portions of porridge. But they do not only serve wafers and porridge in the cafeteria.
In the upstairs library, one can find a variety of books, both in Norwegian and English. It is free to borrow books. You just sign it out when you borrow it, and sign it in when it is given back.
El Campanario dates back to the end of the 15th century. It is said that the building that houses the church, was built in 1575. The rest of the horse-shoe-shaped building was built a few hundred years later.
When the church purchased the place for the amount of 1.8 million euros, it was about to fall apart.
“We had to spend another 1.8 million euros to put it into the shape it is today,” says Steinar Lindvig. “But it seems to have been a good investment.”
The Norwegian Seaman church is part of the Protestant church of Norway. It has 32 churches in 16 countries in addition to an ambulating service.
This summer El Campanario will host the Calahonda Baptist church, from now until the end of August. They have services every Sunday.
Seamans’ priest Steinar Lindvig stresses that, even if it is a Norwegian church, it is open to guests from all nations. |
