Church Burned In Norway

A Norwegian church was arsoned early on Friday in Valer, about 150 kilometres northeast of the capital, Oslo. It's not known if black metallers are responsible for it, though the timing is interesting.

Police managed to save an altarpiece that dates from 1697 and Communion silverware, but many other parts of the church were destroyed, according to Blabbermouth.net. Norwegian police have asked the National Bureau Of Crime Investigation (KRIPOS) to help solve the arson of the church, which was built in 1805, and Norway's NPK is reporting a Satanism expert believes this could be the first of a new wave of attacks against the country's churches.

Last month, graveyards in Sandefjord and Oslo were vandalized. A Norwegian journalist wrote on his blog that about 30 headstones were toppled or overturned in Sandefjord.

The Tonsbergs Blad newspaper reported 30-40 headstones in the the graveyard at Oslo's Nordstrand Church were overturned and some were defaced with "Satanistic" messages. The church itself was vandalized with a message that loosely translates to "Satan lives" in Norwegian.

Black metal has not been directly connected to the arson of the Valer church, but black metal groups like Emperor claimed responsibility for church burnings in the early '90s in Norway. Emperor's Samoth and Burzum's Varg Vikernes (a.k.a. Count Grishnackh) burned a church in Vindafjord in 1994, for which they were later sentenced to 16 months in prison.

Vikernes was found guilty of two other church arsons and one other attempted arson. He said he was doing it to avenge Norwegian pagans, and claimed Christians had desecrated their burial grounds.

Vikernes later murdered Mayhem's Oystein Aarseth, better known as Euronymous. He was sentenced to life in prison, but was released on May 24 on parole. Twilight actor Jackson Rathbone is to portray Vikernes in Lords Of Chaos, an upcoming film about the murderous black metal singer that's based on Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind's book of the same name.