<< Back	LOKSA The well-maintained and refulgent Loksa church is surrounding by greenery and the peace of its graveyard. The holy house, consecrated to Saint Mary, was built between 1847-1853 and replaced the old building. The former chapel and resting place had earlier been located on the right bank of the river, but the site was probably abandoned due to the difficult, clayey ground. The current church building is at least the third holy house in Loksa. The oldest Kuusalu church book, written on the basis of an even older book dated from 1675, states: “The Kuusalu congregation has two coastal chapels. The second and older is the Jumminda chapel. The other in Loksa, a fine place indeed, was repaired in the year of 1629 and has been named after the Holy Virgin.” The successor to the chapel in village of Juminda that is mentioned in the church book was a new church, built in the village of Leesi in 1867. Both Leesi and Loksa served as the seaside auxiliary churches for the Kuusalu Congregation. This is why the local speak still often calls them chapels, though the congregations have been independent for several decades now. The Kuusalu church book also tells us that when the property of the Loksa chapel was recorded in the church book in 1735, it consisted of nothing more than a small bell, a lead chalice with a plate and a piece of altar linen. The chapel building was also likely to be in poor condition, since Count Karl Magnus Stenbock ordered the construction of a new holy building in Loksa in the middle of the 18th century. Consecration of the chapel took place on August 27, 1766. This was also the home of the current church’s presumably first altarpiece, a large tempera painting “The Last Supper. Christ on the Cross” (approx. 1780) by an unknown artist that now hangs in the lobby above the door. The construction of the current church began in the autumn of 1847 when the foundation stone was laid. Two years later the building had a roof and the tower was completed in 1850. Three years later the interior works were also complete and the church was furnished. Kuusalu reverend Eduard Ahrens has written the following about the service of dedication: “On September 27, 1853, the new Loksa chapel was consecrated by superintendant general dr. Rein, Jõelähtme reverend Schüdlöffel and Kadrina reverend Hellenius. The congregation had come in numbers so that merely two parts of the people could find room in the chapel, though it must have been 12 square fathoms larger than the old chapel.” Loksa church is a modest, Historicist rural church. A slightly projecting quadrangular tower joins the single-nave longitudinal building in the western section. The hall has a beam ceiling. As an exception, the holy building lacks a sacristy. The modest church is given verve by the profiled roof cornice, the wide segment arch windows, the ashlar panel doors and the balustrades on the tower’s hatch windows. The hexagonal pulpit was completed by the time the church was consecrated and is mainly decorated by a simple, stylized lily choir on the edge of the abat-voix. Colored window squares give the church’s plain exterior a happy impression. The church’s new altarpiece, “The Resurrection”, was completed in 1888 by Theodor Albert Sprengel (1832-1900), a painter and drawing teacher from Tallinn. The 275 roubles for the painting were collected by congregation donations. In 1889 the holy building’s choir underwent reconstruction and the church received a new organ built by Gustav Terkmann (Targamaa), the organ master with Estonian roots. It is likely that the organ in Loksa church has also received attention from his son, the even more prolific organ master August Terkmann, since the instruments in churches were always in need of care and maintenance. This is also confirmed by the organ’s brass plate that was attached there in memory of the German national Alfred Borgmann who worked as a supervisor in the shipyards and donated 300 kroons for the maintenance of the instrument. The organ has 2 manuals, a pedal and 9 organ stops. In addition to the organ, there is a harmonium in front of the church pews that is more than 100 years old. In 1894 the graveyard by the church was enlarged and two new gates were built for the cemetery. Church property has always been in great care at Loksa. The property includes a baptizing bowl (1721) created in the 18th century by the Tallinn lead caster Johann George Stier and two candelabra – all from the old chapel. The impressive chandeliers of the church were hidden in the soil during the war and, even though their crystal prisms were shattered, are sources of pride even today. The start of education in Loksa is related to the holy building – the church singer Jakob Janter started teaching children in 1867. Since there was no classroom he gave lessons in his living room for the first 8 years until the first school hut, Kõnnu parish village school, was finished. Hugo Lepnurm, born in Kolga parish, went to study in the organ class of the Tallinn Conservatory precisely due to the strong recommendation of chorister Janter.