23 hauntingly beautiful photos of abandoned churches around the world

Abandoned over 40 years ago, the roof completely collapsed due to weather conditions and heavy decay. However, a working 20th-century clock tower still stands nearby.

"Citizens fear that the building will fall apart at any moment. The building is very dear to their hearts. Unfortunately, the parish doesn't have the resources or funding to secure the building and protect it from being erased from history," Robroek told Insider.

"Due to an earthquake and heavy rainfall, this church became very damaged and it is now on the verge of collapse," Robroek told Insider. "The building has a late-gothic bell tower, which is an important testimony of medieval 1300s architecture. The main building is more recent and is built in baroque style."

This church in Italy was built in the 18th century and abandoned about 70 years ago in a rather small village.

"Most of the buildings in the town also looked like they were abandoned," Robroek said.

"The Italian churches I found were for example decorated with beautiful frescoes, while French churches were decorated with stucco," he said.

This once-grand courtyard is now littered with rubble.

After operating for 200 years, the church closed. The building has since been used as a school and a hospital.

The wooden pews in this chapel have started to decompose.

The arched ceiling may now be partially caved in, but the stone pillars remain.

"The church was located on top of a hill surrounded by the most amazing landscape — standing there in complete silence and only reachable by a heavily damaged road," he said.

The church was originally built in the 15th century but was torn down to build a new church in the 19th century.

At the end of World War II, cracks started to appear in the church. In the '80s, the decision was made to close it, despite the fact it had barely been used. In 2009, after activists fought to save the church with a petition to return the structure to its former glory, it was spared from demolition.

"It's still a very long way to go. The church is located almost 900m high on a big hill and driving to it took a long while due to the bad and dangerous road," Robroek said.

The altar and artwork haven't been tarnished by the passing of time.

One can only imagine what's buried underneath this rubble and overgrowth.

The designer of the church was well known in Italy at the time.

Initiatives to restore or save the place have not been successful, and the church has since collapsed.

It doesn't look that different than it did decades ago.

This was part of a college for priests built halfway through the 19th century. After the college was unable to find suitable teachers to run the school, it closed and the church was abandoned.

"The architect promised to design a chapel in old Gothic style and lived up to that promise. The chapel is surrounded by an immense garden. Now, nature is clearly taking over," Robroek told Insider.

Others have either lost them or have simple clear panes on all sides.

The 14-century cloister only had about four rooms.

"Sadly, in the 19th century, the cloister was destroyed," Robroek said. "However, several elements of the original cloister were later returned and were used to rebuild it based on the former layout."

"Some of these buildings were a walk in the park, everything was open and no one was looking after them anymore. Others were harder," says Robroek. "The hardest one was where I had to climb over a high brick wall, crawl through a tiny hole, and fight my way through the bushes while not trying to be seen by other people."

Robroek has come across clothing, ancient books, and tools used in services while photographing these structures.

The spookiest artifact Robroek came across was a collection of bones and skull in a looted grave.

The floor is completely covered in debris.

The ceilings aren't arched, like more ornate churches and cathedrals throughout Europe.

The church has stood for hundreds of years but was officially abandoned in 1968 after the roof collapsed during a funeral.

In 2012, a local artist named Jakub Hadrava created 32 life-sized ghost statues to sit in the church's pews.

Since then, visitors from across the world have visited the church and made donations, allowing for the historic church's roof to be repaired.

This is a true shame, considering the gorgeous historical architecture found in each and every one.

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