The Baroque and Rococo fixtures and fittings of the church are also quite valuable.

History

Grzybno is mentioned in written sources from 1381 as a manor farm of the Teutonic Order. Initially, the village belonged to the Unisław commandry and then to the Starogród commandry.                         

The parish was likely established by the Teutonic Order in the 13th-14th century. In 1454, Jan Bażyński and the Prussian Confederation gave the village to mayor of Chełmno Piotr Bischofsheim. In 1505, the ownership of Grzybno was transferred to the bishops of Chełmno. In 1773, the estate of the Church was secularised and the majority thereof was taken over by the Prussian government.                                    

The construction of the church likely began in the 4th quarter of the 13th century and was finished in the 1st quarter of the 14th century. In the 17th century, the sacristy was was redesigned, and in the 19th century a porch was added from the south. The church was renovated in 1699, 1756 1895 and 1993.                                                                                       

The parish is connected with the Reverend Stanisław Kujot – a prominent historian of Pomerania and the Chełmno Land, co-founder of the Society of Arts and Sciences in Toruń. Starting from 1893, he was the parish priest in Grzybno, where he died in 1914.

Description

The church is situated on a small hill in the eastern part of Grzybno. The land around the church and the graveyard is enclosed with a brick wall. The Gothic single-nave church is oriented towards the east and was built on the floor plan of an elongated rectangle with a square tower to the west and two annexes: a sacristy to the north and a porch to the south. The main body is covered with a gable roof whose extended side section covers the sacristy, the tower is covered with a tented roof with a flag displaying the date 1756 and the porch with a gable roof.                                        

The church is made of field stone, with the eastern gable, the porch, the buttresses and the portal made of brick. The east façade with a tall pointed-arch blind window with a semicircular arch, topped with a stepped gable, partitioned by five niches which feature identical pointed-arch blind windows. In the west façade, separated by a berm, there are two-stepped half-gables flanking the two-storey tower. The lower storey of the tower is made of field stone, with a Gothic, pointed-arch portal, reinforced in the corners with tall single-stepped buttresses; the upper storey is made of wood, was likely extended upwards in 1699, and has walls clad with weatherboards, with pairs of windows in the top section.

The interior is covered with a false barrel vault, with the one in the chancel likely dating back to the 17th century and thoroughly renovated c. 1895. Beneath the ceiling, there is a profiled cornice; in the nave, there is a transverse crossbeam. The chancel is separated from the nave by a profiled rood beam supported by columns. In the porch beneath the tower, there is a beamed ceiling with the letters R H S and the date 1699.

Notable fixtures and fittings include the medieval granite stoup, the Mannerist main altarpiece containing Baroque elements, with a Late Renaissance painting of Our Lady of the Snows with Child from c. 1600, painted on board, in the middle section; on the altar, there are sculptures of Sts Peter and Paul as well as the patron of the church, St Michael the Archangel. Two Rococo side altarpieces in the form of slightly concave obelisks feature paintings of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of St Thomas. There is a Baroque crucifix on a rood beam from the late 17th century. The wooden music gallery from the late 18th century is supported by four fluted columns. The gallery balustrade features three paintings depicting St Cecilia, King David with a harp and an angel playing the timpani. The pipe organ has a neoclassical case frame constructed by Wilhelm Sauer, an organ builder from Frankfurt (Oder) (c. 1870).Inside the tower, there are two bells from 1554 and 1766 (cast by Mikołaj Petersilge in Toruń).  In the parish graveyard by the church, there is a sepulchral monument of the Reverend Stanisław Kujot.

The church can be visited during service.

Marzenna Stocka, National Heritage Board of Poland, Regional Branch in Toruń, 16-05-2018

Bibliography

• Diecezja toruńska. Historia i teraźniejszość, Vol. 5, Dekanat chełmżyński, Toruń 1995, pp. 73-77
• Katalog Zabytków Sztuki w Polsce, Vol. XI: Województwo bydgoskie, issue 4: Powiat chełmiński, Tadeusz Chrzanowski and Marian Kornecki (eds.), Warszawa 1976, pp. 94-96