The present parish church building at Portmoak, dated 1832, is the last of at least three to have been built in this locality. The earliest documentary mention of a religious foundation near this site dates from the turn of the 12th century, when a Culdee monastic settlement was known to have already been firmly established here and dedicated to St Moak or Monan. By c.1150, the site is thought to have passed into the ownership of  the Augustinians of St Andrew’s, who rededicated their new priory at Portmoak to St Moak and to St Stephen the Martyr in 1243 and in whose hands it stayed until the Reformation.

The medieval priory, or at least parts of it, continued to be used as a kirk for almost a century after the arrival of the Reformed Church of Scotland and was not substantially replaced until 1659, after it had become too ruinous and dangerous to use for regular worship. The old church was then fully demolished and the site of the parish church was them moved to its current location, on the road between Scotlandwell and Kinnesswood.

The 17th century parish church was rebuilt and replaced by the current building in 1831-32, by the architect Andrew Cumming. It is rectangular in plan with a broad horseshoe gallery, held aloft on decorative fluted columns hugging three sides of its airy sanctuary. All seating faces the attractive wooden octagonal pulpit on the long south wall, with its fine ogee canopy and sounding board topped with a decorative urn above and  flanked on either side by tall windows that flood the space with light.

The church’s bell is dated 1642, presumably transferred from the belfry of its predecessor and the kirk itself houses a finely carved Celtic cross-slab, thought to date from the 9th or 10th century. The stone was discovered nearby in 1976 during excavations on the site of the Augustinian Priory in advance of the laying down of a new runway for the gliding centre that now occupies the site. The Scottish Gliding Union formally placed the Portmoak Stone into the care of the Parish Church in 1993, the 750th anniversary of the Augustinian settlement of the nearby church site. You can view an excellent 3D scan of the stone here.

The separate but linked parishes of Orwell and Portmoak became a single united parish of Orwell & Portmoak in 2006. A union with Kinross, Fossoway and Cleish Churches took place in January 2025 and the frequency of regular services in the building inevitably reduced. Portmoak Parish Church was closed and listed for sale by the Church of Scotland in June 2026, during a period of intensive rationalisation of their nationwide property portfolio by the denomination.

The surrounding kirkyard, containing many interesting memorials dating from the 18th-20th centuries, including that of 18th century poet Michael Bruce, and many interesting ‘memento mori’ symbol laden stones. The cemetery remains in the care of the local authority and open to the public.