"We're an equal-opportunity seller," says Stuart Grannen, owner of the Chicago-based Architectural Artifacts, whose Web site boasts religious artifacts as its newest category. Recently listed were a carved oak bench from a Minneapolis church for $12,000 and a marble Ten Commandments from a Milwaukee synagogue for $3,800.

The Web site of Georgia-based King Richard's Religious Artifacts offers everything from antique crucifixes to gold-plated holy water sprinklers. Owner Rick Lair says he's worked with dozens of churches in upstate New York.

An altar from a downsizing Buffalo convent found its way to Our Lady of Hope, a church in northern Virginia that opened in January. Through architects and dealers, the Rev. William Saunders decorated with items from churches as far away as San Francisco, including windows from a German-built church in Elmira, N.Y. His hand-carved marble altar came from the Philadelphia warehouse, for just $500.

"We were the first to do this in our diocese," the Rev. Saunders says. "Now others are starting."

Interest in church items has even led to a new but unofficial order of priests devoted to preservation, the Society of St. John Cantius in Chicago.

"We're trying to bring back beautiful things," said the Rev. Jim Isaacson, noting that the order was formed after many items from closed area churches were simply discarded.

Some dioceses destroy items if another church won't take them so they don't fall into private hands.

"We don't want to find an altar railing in a bar," says Sister Regina Murphy, director of research and planning for the Buffalo diocese. "Or a confessional in a restaurant. People are kind of aghast at that. So we dismantle it completely."

The Rev. Pat Butler wishes there were a national clearinghouse for religious artifacts. The Albany-area priest worries about how much is being lost or desecrated.

He recalled once visiting a Missouri home furnished with an altar and church candlesticks bought at an auction. The owner explained how she'd also wanted a certain gold box for her jewelry.

"I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up," the Rev. Butler says. He asked her to describe it. The box was a tabernacle, the enclosure for consecrated hosts, often kept at the center of the altar.

Though that troubled him, the Rev. Butler encourages reuse by churches. He once received a windfall himself.

Some 150 years ago, Irish immigrants built Gothic-spired St. Joseph's Church in downtown Albany, but over time it declined and was was finally abandoned and sold for $1.

Surrounded by rowhouses, it is now in the hands of the Historic Albany Foundation.