Toreby Church was built around 1200 and it is an unusually large red-brick Romanesque building, the nave and chancel having been extended in the Gothic period with a sacristy and lateral aisle. The tower was constructed in late Gothic times, shortly after the church was built. The sacristy to the north of the chancel was built at the beginning of the 14th century. The aisles were added in the Gothic period, first the one on the northern side, then the one to the south. The Late-Gothic porch has been altered several times.
The chancel originally had a flat wooden ceiling, the vaulting was added later. Six-ribbed vaults were also added to the nave and the northern aisle. A fresco of a bassoon-playing angel was found on the chancel arch, probably part of a painting of the Last Judgment. The altarpiece consists of a painting of the Entombment of Christ, copied from Pietro Perugino's original by Albert Küchler in 1849. The former altarpiece now stands at the west end of the church. The pulpit (1645) in the auricular style is the work of woodcarver Jørgen Ringnis. The north aisle contains a crucifix from c. 1250.
The frescos on the sacristy vault were discovered in 1904 and restored in 1920. Probably dating from the early 14th century, they depict the Enthroned Christ, two angels, John the Baptist with the lamb, and the prophets Zechariah and Jeremiah. Traces of other figures can also be seen including Michael fighting the dragon, the Judgment of Solomon and the Sacrifice of Isaac. There are also traces of frescos of Moses, including Moses and the Burning Bush.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.