UNHOLY: Thieves Steal $2 Million Dollar Artifact Church – Decapitate Angels

June 25, 2022

Police and church officials told reporters that a bejeweled tabernacle believed to be worth $2 million was stolen from a Brooklyn church by thieves who also decapitated statues of angels. The 18-karat gold, the jewel-encrusted tabernacle is more than 100 years old and, according to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, dates back to the 1890s when the St. Augustine Church was constructed.

Police investigating the incident also said that at least one anti-Christian thief also decapitated an angel statue and stole its head in a rampage the church’s pastor described as “very, very violent.”

This was just the latest attack on a Catholic Church in recent months, News12 Brooklyn noted.

More details of this incident from The Daily Mail report:

Thieves stole a jewel-encrusted solid gold tabernacle worth $2 million from a Brooklyn church – and also beheaded one of its marble angel statues.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) said an unknown number of thieves stole a tabernacle between Thursday night and Saturday from St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church on 6 Avenue in Brooklyn, New York.

The brazen thieves reported cut a giant hole into the tabernacle with unknown equipment and extracted an 18-karat gold tabernacle with jewels from its casing.

The tabernacle – a large structure that holds the Eucharist in the form of a blessed host – sat under a domed archway inside the church. The giant structure was hidden by what appears to be a revolving gold door, which now has a large rectangular cutout where the thieves drilled into to access it.

Father Frank Tumino, pastor of St. Agustine and St. Francis Xavier Parish Church told News12,

“Sadly, we’ve come to expect that anything can happen. I think we all just never thought that a sacred space would be violated like that,” Father Tumino said.

“You could smell the metal shavings because, obviously, they came with tools to be able to do. I think it had to be pretty organized and just from the heavy weight of it, but it definitely seemed like it was more than one person,” he added.

“Sacred things should not be cut up and sold. Sacred things should not be melted down. Sacred things should be really protected, and so that would be my greatest hope. That as it is sacred and it has been used for over 100 years for sacred things, that it would return to sacred use,” Tumino said.

Police are asking anyone with information about the crimes against the church to reach out at 1800-577-TIPS.

Watch the video report here: ABC7/Youtube