Saarde

Saarde is a parish in the forested country south of Pärnu, near the old Livonian lands of Metsepole. Its church served a scattered rural community whose history reached back to the conversion of the region during the northern crusades. After the Livonian War, Christian Schrapfer, once a preacher at the court of Duke Magnus, served Saarde alongside several neighbouring parishes. In 1789 fire destroyed the parsonage and its church books. The pastor Voigdt gathered recollections and reconstructed lists of people and events, preserving some of the parish's history after the loss.