As you emerge from the crypt into the church itself you are still in Stephen's Abbey Church. At the west end of the church as it is today, looking towards the altar, you are standing in what would have been the east end of a great abbey church, in the middle of a central tower. The Two great pillars ( and two more embedded in the west wall) were to form the base of the tower. The apse was common to churches and cathedrals of the early Norman era. The main part of the abbey church would have stretched westwards into the the present churchyard. Beneath the arch at the west end stands an early Norman font.

After Stephen abandoned his work in Lastingham, he and his monks moved on to York where they built St. Mary's Abbey. Thus the church at Lastingham and its lands became the property of St. Mary's at York. For the next 140 years the ecclesiastical duties of the church at Lastingham were to be carried out by a priest sent from York, but in 1230 there appears a Vicar, instituted , inducted and endowed, and therefore no longer responsible to the abbot of St. Mary's.

Stephen's plan for a great Abbey Church was never realised. Instead the work that he began was completed in 1228 by converting his foundation into the Parish Church you see today. The West end was blocked off between the two great pillars, the thin pillars with pointed arches (typical of the Early English Period) were added to the church and the side aisles were built out. The south aisle was extended and a bell tower was added in the 14th Century.

Originally there were side chapels where the Organ is now, and where the vestry is behind the pulpit.