There have been over 750 stave churches in Norway. Many churches have rotted away, other churches have burnt down and many chuches have been teared down and replaced by new churches. There were 95 stave churches left in 1800. Nowadays, there are 28 stave churches. In some cases, furniture of great value was saved from the stave churches which were teared down.

Gol stave church, which is dated from the 13th century, was teared down in 1881, but it was bought by Oscar I and placed in Bygdøy, a peninsula in Oslofjorden. This stave church has a nave and adjoining naves with a semi-circular apsis and 8 columns. It is now part of Norsk Folkmuseum (The Norwegian Musuem of Cultural Heritage) in Bygdøy. Vang stave church in Valdres was bought by Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Preussia and moved to Brückenberg in Schlesien in modern Poland. The artist J. C. Dahl took the initiative in staving Vang stave church. The Nesland stave church, which is dated from the 13th century was teared down in 1847 in spite of the Lutheran minister M. B. Landstad's attempt to save the church. Fantoft stave church in Bergen burnt down in 1992, but it has been reconstructed.

In 2000 the Norwegian state gave a stave church replica to Iceland in occasion of the 1000 years jubilee of the Christinazation of Iceland. The altar was brought by Viking ship to Iceland. The stave church replica was constructed in Vestmannaeyar where Olav Tryggvason constructed the first stave church in Iceland in 1000. The Norwegian TV documentary is titled "Med alter til Island og heimatt med hest." My translation of the Norwegian title into English is "Bringing an altar to Iceland and returning home with a horse".