Beloved crown stolen from Virgin Mary statue at St. John the Evangelist church in Center City
The crown was made of jewelry and gems donated by parishioners after the church experienced a major fire in the early 1900s, police said.
Police are investigating a burglary at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Center City in which a 125-year-old golden crown resting on top of a marble statue of the Virgin Mary was stolen.
According to Philadelphia police someone broke into the church by smashing through a stained glass window around 1:10 a.m. Saturday and took the crown.
The crown was created by James E. Caldwell & Co. around 1900 out of jewelry and gems donated by parishioners to celebrate the church’s reopening after a fire in 1899, the church’s archivist, Anne Kirkwood, said.
The fire, which started in the Wanamaker building warehouse killed three firefighters who are memorialized with plaques outside of the church. The blaze destroyed the interior of the church save for the marble statue of Mary, which was carved in Italy in the 1850s.
“The whole Catholic city and non-Catholic city came together to help the parish,” Kirkwood said. “All of the women and men of the parish donated cufflinks, jewelry, necklaces and had this crown made. For our parish, it’s a much beloved link to the past. We’re so crushed, we really are.”
The burglar was captured on surveillance video breaking through a stained glass panel, climbing into the upper nave and going straight to the statue and crown, Kirkwood said. The person would have had to scale a fence outside and climbed up onto a chair to reach the crown at least 10-feet above the ground, she added.
“It’s very plain to us from the surveillance video that he knew what he was doing. ... My concern is we want to alert other churches in case this guy’s out casing other churches to steal gold and jewelry.”
No arrest has been made and police are asking anyone with information to contact the Philadelphia Police Department
The Gothic Revival church is just a block from City Hall on 13th street and dates back to 1838. It once served as the cathedral for the Philadelphia diocese, according to the parish website, and in the 1900s held a 2:45 a.m. ”Printer’s je” to accommodate printers coming off of their shifts.
The stained glass that was damaged also dates to the church’s reopening in 1902 and came from a stained glass workshop in Munich, Germany. Church staff spent much of Saturday picking up shards of the shattered window in hopes of reassembling it in the future.
All four regularly scheduled Masses will go on as planned Sunday morning.