A tower with a small hipped dome. The lower storey of the tower is of fieldstone with two heavy buttresses in front. The upper storeys are of brick. The nave with the chancel is of fieldstone with brick corners. A porch on the north side. In 1818 a hurricane brought down the tower (it fell onto the nave) and destroyed the vaults; since then the church has had a plaster ceiling. The chancel has a twelve-part star vault. Between the nave and the chancel is a Gothic triumphal arch. The altar dates from 1605 and was restored in 1861 and 1877. Among the altar furnishings, the following deserve mention: a black wooden cross with a beautiful silver crucifix and a silver skull. Pulpit of 1609.
During the fighting of the Second World War the church came under artillery fire, which badly damaged the dome of the tower and the roof of the nave and chancel.
In 1987 traces of the damage were still visible on the east side of the tower. After the war the tower was covered with a flat, sloping wooden roof. The roof of the nave and chancel was also remade and reduced to half its height. In February 1987 the tower was still standing; the north porch had been destroyed. A square door had been knocked through the east wall of the chancel. The church itself was used as a storehouse. The church bell hung on a tree near the village council office. In the square in front of the church the memorial to those fallen in the First World War, made of granite blocks, has survived almost intact. On one side the memorial bears a German helmet, on the other an Iron Cross.
In the summer of 1988 demolition of the tower began. By 1989 it had been pulled down to the first storey.
This is how the Order-period church of Laptau looked in 2021.
The walls above the nave and chancel were built up by about a metre or more. By the spring of 1990 the rebuilding of the church was complete, and it had been turned into a gymnasium. Utility rooms were placed in the chancel area.
Present-day photo by Mikhail Ogorodnikov.
Translated from Russian with the help of AI (Claude, Anthropic), October 2026.
