The Baroque and Rococo fixtures and fittings of the church, including a Gothic sculpture of the Blessed Virgin Mary with Child, are also quite valuable.

History

The church in Wabcz was mentioned in written records in 1288 and it is likely around that time that it was constructed. In the first half of the 14th century, the tower was completed and the chancel was widened. In 1706, a chapel of St Anne was built by the chancel, with the funds provided by Anna Konojadzka. The church underwent renovation in the years 1835-1840, a full-scale renovation in 1895 and another renovation of the interior in 1966.  

Description

The church is situated on a small hill in the western part of Wabcz. The land around the church and the graveyard is enclosed with a brick wall. The Gothic church is oriented towards the east and built on a rectangular floor plan with a narrower rectangular chancel, which is adjoined by the chapel of St Anne from the north. A tower with a porch on the ground-floor level was added to the south of the nave. The nave body of the church and its chancel are covered with separate gable roofs, with an extended side section of the chancel roof covering the sacristy and the chapel.  The church is made of field stone, with the use of split granite and brick rubble, with the gables and upper storeys of the tower made of brick in the so-called Gothic bond. The façades of the main body and the tower are supported with single-stepped buttresses in the corners. The eastern wall of the chancel was extended upwards with a brick wall and topped with a stepped gable, with a division in the form of a plastered frieze. The gable is flanked by small pinnacles and partitioned by lesenes, which flow seamlessly into pyramid-shaped pinnacles.  The west façade features a pointed-arch profiled portal on the axis, and is topped with a triangular gable with six pinnacles, which is separated from the rest of the façade with a band frieze with a row of slanting plasterwork shields and is adorned with pointed-arch blind windows. In the eastern wall of the chancel, there are tall segment-headed windows in pointed-arch niches which project beyond the upper section of the walls and are flanked with triangular Gothic Revival gablets. The tower has four storeys, with a portal from the 13th/14th century on the bottom storey and with the upper storeys separated from each other with band friezes and adorned with pointed-arch blind windows on three sides. The top section of the tower features battlements and a brick quadrangular, pyramid-shaped cupola, which was reconstructed in the first half of the 19th century. Inside the main nave, there is a flat ceiling partitioned into large rectangular sections by profiled beams; in the chancel, there is a false barrel vault; in the sacristy, there is a barrel vault with lunettes; in the porch beneath the tower, there is a beamed ceiling. The southern part of the chancel features two pointed-arch arcades resting on a pillar and two engaged pillars, embedded in the original peripheral wall; the chapel of St Anne opens up to the inside with a semi-circular arch. Inside the porch beneath the tower, there is a pointed-arch portal, lavishly decorated and constructed using hand-made brick from the 13th/14th century. Noteworthy fixtures and fittings include the Baroque architectural altarpiece from the first quarter of the 18th century, which features a Gothic sculpture of the Blessed Virgin Mary with Child from c. 1380 of the Madonna on a Lion style, in Baroque, radiant glory; on the top storey, there is an altarpiece with a Baroque painting of the Transfiguration from the 18th century. There are two Rococo side altarpieces by the rood arch and in the nave and a 19th-century altarpiece in the chapel. The Rococo pulpit and the compositionally similar baptismal font with sculptures depicting the Baptism in the Jordan date back to the third quarter of the 18th century. The wooden choir gallery dates back to the mid-19th century. The Gothic sculptures of Sts Catherine and Barbara of the Madonna on a Lion style from c. 1380 together with the sculpture from the main altarpiece were originally part of the middle section of a triptych of the so-called Four Holy Virgins which has not been preserved. The monstrance with a Baroque, repoussé base and knot, with a marking of Toruń and the name of Mikołaj Bröllmann. In the church graveyard, there is a Late Classicist, stone tomb slab of the Reverend Ignacy Tarnowski (d. 1869).

The church can be visited during service.

Marzenna Stocka, National Heritage Board of Poland, Regional Branch in Toruń, 17-05-2018

Bibliography

• Diecezja toruńska. Historia i teraźniejszość, Vol. 4, Dekanat chełmiński, Toruń 1996, pp. 157-163
• Katalog Zabytków Sztuki w Polsce, Vol. XI: Województwo bydgoskie, issue 4: Powiat chełmiński, Tadeusz Chrzanowski and Marian Kornecki (eds.), Warszawa 1976, pp. 133-136