It is the church for the Jostedal parish which is part of the Sogn prosti (deanery) in the Diocese of Bjørgvin.

The white, wooden church was built in a long church design around 1660 by builder Hans Ottesen Ravn using plans drawn up by an unknown architect.

The whole Jostedalen area became virtually uninhabited after the Black Death in Norway, so the wooden church must have sat vacant for some time.

Tradition states that the church was unused from the mid-1300s until the mid-1500s and throughout that time it was not maintained.

Each church parish was a constituency that elected people called "electors" who later met together in each county to elect the representatives for the assembly that was to meet in Eidsvoll later that year.