Construction signs are placed outside the Kiruna Church, a Sami style wooden Swedish Lutheran church, called Kiruna Kyrka in Swedish, in Kiruna, Sweden, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, a day before it will be moved along a 5-kilometer (3-mile) route east to a new city center as part of the town’s relocation. (AP Photo/Malin Haarala)

But this Lutheran church some 200 kilometers (120 miles) above the Arctic Circle seeks to incorporate the region's minority languages — Northern Sami, Finnish and Meänkieli – into worship services, carrying on an inclusive ethos that has been a cornerstone of the historic wooden church since its founding in 1912.

The mammoth move has seen the wooden structure, weighing over 600 tons, transported on specialized trailers traveling at about 1,600 feet per hour.

Watch live as an entire church in Sweden begins its move to its new home on Tuesday, 19 August. Kiruna Church is being relocated to save it from ground subsidence and the expansion of the world's largest underground iron ore mine.

Mining in Kiruna, Sweden, has weakened the ground below a beloved church. It’s being rolled three miles to its new home.

Sweden's 113-year-old Kiruna Church is being transported away from a location that is sinking due to underground mining.

A landmark Swedish church arrived yesterday at its new home after a two-day move across the Arctic town of Kiruna, in a move to allow Europe’s