The then ruler of the Norwegians, Olaf II Haraldsson, abolishes paganism in the country, replacing it with the faith in the one God of the Holy Trinity. After this event, between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, wooden churches are built in Norway, combining features of traditional pagan Scandinavian temples with early Christian Romanesque architecture.

These are post-and-frame constructions, the so-called stavkirke. The material used comes from the core wood of hard Scandinavian pines. No nails were used; the durability of the structure relied on juniper pegs and wooden joints. The descendants of the Vikings, who had contacts with many cultures, decorated the temples, combining their own traditions with Romanesque, Byzantine, and even Saracen and Persian influences. More than five centuries later, in 1840, the Evangelical parish council of Wang on Lake Wangsmusen in southern Norway decided to sell the deteriorating church and thus obtain funds for building a new one. Johan Christian Dahl, a Norwegian lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, succeeded in persuading the King of Prussia to purchase it.

Thus, in the summer of 1841, all usable elements were packed into enormous crates and shipped by water to the port of Stettin. According to accounts, the ship carrying the Wang Church miraculously escaped sinking during a violent storm that caught it while passing through the Danish straits. The magnificent work of Scandinavian carpenters and woodcarvers eventually found its way to the Old Museum in Berlin. It was intended to be reconstructed in the city gardens on Peacock Island, but then another turning point in its history occurred. Now let us return to the sculpture of Lazarus and turn right. After several dozen metres, we will stand before a Neoclassical epitaph.