Grip Stave Church () is a historic parish church of the Church of Norway in Kristiansund Municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is located in the now-abandoned fishing village of Grip on the small island of Grip about northwest of the town of Kristiansund. It is an annex church for the Kristiansund parish which is part of the Ytre Nordmøre prosti (deanery) in the Diocese of Møre. The white, wooden church was built in a rectangular stave church style in 1470 by an unknown architect. With only one nave that is long, wide, and high, it is one of Norway's smallest churches. The priest no longer lived in the parish after the year 1635, but regularly visited the island. Grip has been an annex to the Kristiansund church parish since 1967. The church is also one of the most remote of the existing stave churches in Norway since it sits on a small island about off the mainland coast. Located in a now-abandoned fishing village, the church is only used in the summer season, when both summer residents and tourists attend worship services every third Sunday, led by a priest from Kristiansund. History The church was built in around the year 1470 at the island's highest point, about above sea level. The church is a Møre type stave church, being structurally similar to the larger Kvernes and Rødven stave churches. Because of the barren nature of the island, there is no cemetery on the church grounds, and bodies had to be buried elsewhere, such as in the cemetery of Bremsnes Church, over away over open sea. In 1621, the church underwent major modifications when portions of the walls were rebuilt and a flèche was added. In 1814, this church served as an election church (). Together with more than 300 other parish churches across Norway, it was a polling station for elections to the 1814 Norwegian Constituent Assembly which wrote the Constitution of Norway. This was Norway's first national elections. 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. New windows were installed in the 1870s, and at the same time both a weaponhouse and a sacristy were added. During restoration work in 1933 led by John Tverdahl, a new foundation was added