3. The Nave

The interior of Turku Cathedral, which is visited every year by almost 200,000 people. Text continues below.

In the main part of the Cathedral, colonnades separate the aisles from the central nave. At the end of the nave, you can see the main altar. From the door to the altar is the same distance as from the door to the top of the bell tower. The Cathedral is built of granite, gneiss and brick.

An eight-storey building could fit inside the Cathedral. Text continues below.

The original Cathedral was a hall church in which the ceiling height was the same over both nave and aisles. When the nave roof was raised, making the Cathedral more like a basilica, light flowed into the building through the windows of the clerestory. The groin vaults were built in the 1460s. Much of the Cathedral’s stone floor is made up of inscribed tombstones. Between the fourteenth century and the year 1784, more than 4,500 people were buried beneath the Cathedral floor.

The Cathedral’s main organ. Text continues below.

The main organ organ in the Cathedral today dates back to 1980 and is located on the balcony at the west end of the Cathedral. The organ, made by Veikko Virtanen Ltd, is the second-largest such instrument in Finland. It is 14 metres high and weighs 15 tonnes. The Cathedral may have had an organ in the Middle Ages, but the first set of built-in organ pipes are believed to have been installed in 1576. Due to fire and other damage, the instrument has had to be replaced a number of times. In the church room below, the choir organ dates from 1973. In addition to these, there are two positive organs in the Cathedral, dating from 1956 and 2006.

Organist Markku Hietaharju at work.