[1][2] The village of Rjukan began to grow quickly during the early part of the 20th century.

Originally, it was intended that the church should be built by the village square, but it ended up on the Einungsdalen estate near Ingolfsland.

In February 1965, while the filming of the movie The Heroes of Telemark was in progress, the second floor gallery caught fire.

The tower was severely heat damaged and had to be largely rebuilt, but otherwise most of the walls were reused, and the church basically got the same exterior.

In the renovation, the old choir transept was rebuilt into a two-storey section where there is a congregation hall downstairs and a meeting room and kitchen on the second floor.

The remaining part of the old nave was rebuilt as a more modern-looking long church design with a different east–west orientation.