[1] The Neo-Gothic church was pre-built in Norway and erected in Grytviken by whalers led by Carl Anton Larsen around 1912–1913.

[3] The cemetery, located approximately 700 metres (2,300 ft) to the south on the other end of Grytviken Harbour, also holds empty graves for whalers lost at sea.

It holds 64 graves, including nine victims of a 1912 typhoid epidemic, Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874–1922), the ashes of fellow polar explorer Frank Wild (1873–1939) which were interred in 2011, and Félix Artuso, an Argentinian submarine officer who was killed in the 1982 British recapture of South Georgia from Argentina.

[5][6][7][8][9] In April 1982, during the invasion of South Georgia by Argentinian military forces, members of a British Antarctic Survey team were invited by some Royal Marines to take shelter in the church.

[10] After years of abandonment and weathering, the harsh elements of the region (the roof was damaged in 1994), the church was renovated by the keepers of South Georgia Museum and volunteers in 1996–1998, and now serves for occasional church services and marriage ceremonies.