2. Congregation Histories : Minnesota

Hanska

Nora Unitarian Church

For over 100 years, Nora Church has served as a “Beacon on the Hill” for liberal thinkers in South Central Minnesota. Located one mile east of Hanska, MN, it is situated on the highest point in Brown County. Jesuit missionaries, making their way through the wilderness, named the “Hill” Mount Pisquah or Pisgah.

A number of factors were involved in the conception of Nora Church. All of the founders were born in Norway, and were influenced by such liberal performers as Hans Nilson Hauge, Kristofer Bruun, and Henrik Ibsen. They were members of a local Lutheran church, but became dissatisfied there over local matters, one of them being the location of the cemetery.

Kristofer Janson, a poet-preacher from Norway, who was also an ordained Unitarian minister, was on a lecture tour, when a number of the Lutheran dissidents heard him speak in a neighboring community. Later they invited him to speak in Hanska, and from that Nora Free Church was organized on August 21, 1881. The members resolved that day to be called Nora Congregation; the name Nora comes from the three symbolic maidens representing the three sister Scandinavian countries, Nora, Svea, and Dania. Nora means simply Norwegian. It was the better part of one year before the church actually became an institution in the American Unitarian Fellowship.

Kristofer Janson, who was serving the Nazareth Church in Minneapolis as minister, was called as minister January 14, 1882. He was to hold church services here in Brown County six times a year. The first adopted constitution called for the Bible as the foundation for church law, but did not accept that work as infallible.

There was much community controversy over the new church, and at one point, Johannes Moe, Chief Spokesman, wrote to Budstikken, (a Norwegian newspaper) pleading that Norwegians in America live and let live. Much of the controversy was carried on in the Scandinavian newspapers of the day, and is well documented.

The first church was built on top of Mt. Pisquah, behind the present one. It was nearing completion when it was destroyed by a tornado in July 1883. Rev. Janson’s family and the carpenters were in the building at the time, but no one was seriously injured. During the following week, clothing and pieces of his manuscripts were found clinging to tree branches. It was jokingly said that indeed, money grew on the trees. Some people of the community however, saw the destruction as a sign from God, denouncing “the church on the hill”. The following Sunday members met and decided to build a small meetinghouse using the materials that remained. However, when contributions from the East began to come in, the plans were changed, and the erection of the present church began that fall.

Rev. Amends Norman was hired to serve the church upon the resignation of Kristofer Janson in September 1893. Rev. Janson and Rev. Norman served Nora Church for the first 50 years of its existence. Since that time, the church has been ably ministered to by the Revs. George Walen, P.J. Hanson, V. Emil Gudmundson, Peter Weller, Charles Flagg, Leroy Egenberger, Paul Johnson, Harold Babcock, and Ralph Johnson. Each of these men shared their concerns, talents, and philosophies with the congregation.

(Author not noted)