The Black Church of Búðakirkja — The Priest Who Practiced Darkness

Búðakirkja, Snæfellsnes, West Iceland

The solitary black church at Búðir on Snæfellsnes has stood alone on a lava field since 1703. The vicar associated with its early years was said to practice sorcery. The church has burned and been rebuilt. Something about the site does not change.

Búðakirkja — the Búðir church — is one of the most photographed buildings in Iceland: a small, perfectly black wooden church sitting alone on a lava field above the sea on the Snæfellsnes peninsula, with no town or settlement visible in any direction. The nearest structure is a hotel some distance away. The church is entirely isolated, as it has been for most of its existence. The church was first built in 1703, replacing an older structure at the same location. The small community of Búðir — a busy fishing station in the 17th century — had by then already shrunk to almost nothing. The church was built for a parish that was disappearing. The vicar associated with the church's early decades was the subject of local unease. He was educated, distant, and known to be out walking on the lava field at hours when no pastoral business required it. The lava around Búðir is complex — black tunnels and rifts from ancient flows, deep enough to stand in, irregular enough to get lost in. He was seen entering the lava field at midnight and returning at dawn. No explanation was offered. The church burned in the early 19th century. It was rebuilt. The rebuilt structure burned again. The current building dates to 1848 and has stood since. The churchyard contains graves of the old fishing-station community, including several with dates that suggest entire families dying in the same week. Visitors report the site as profoundly quiet — not peaceful, but absent of something. No birds perch on the church. The lava immediately around it grows less lichen than the surrounding field. These things are noted. They are not explained.