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 cuff links, 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 climb 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 Mass” 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.
The robbery was discovered when the church was preparing for a baptism, Assistant Pastor John McCloskey said Sunday morning. As they readied for the ceremony, church staff found broken glass and soon found that the crown had been stolen, he said.
The taking of the crown has left the statue looking “unclothed,” the 74-year-old assistant pastor said, and has left him with feelings of sadness and anger.
“She looks unclothed,” said McCloskey. “She really does, and I’m kind of surprised by that because it’s [the crown] not something that I made a point of looking at, but it is something that I am [used to having there].”
The church does not currently have plans to replace the crown and is still working to assess the financial value of the artifact, he said. But for McCloskey, it isn’t about the money.
“It’s about what it means to us, resilience, and boy would we miss it,” he said.
At a Mass on Sunday morning, parishioners came to worship as they always did, adjusting to a new stark view in the wake of the robbery.
Renee Lamons, 72, a parishioner at the church for decades, hasn’t been able to sleep since receiving a text letting her know about the robbery. Sunday morning’s Mass was the first time she saw the statue of the Virgin Mary without its crown.
”It’s just the idea that somebody would violate God’s house, the church, and do something like this,” Lamons said. “I am very upset.”
The loss of the crown is more personal for Nadine Boulware, 66. Her friend Deborah Lewis was a sacristan at the church. A sacristan is responsible for taking care of religious objects, and Lewis spent decades taking care of the statue of the Virgin Mary and the crown before her death last year, said Boulware.
“Our Deborah used to take very good care of that statue. She would be devastated if she was alive,” Boulware said, holding back tears.
As she gazed at the statue of the Virgin Mary, no longer donning its crown, Lamons spoke a warning to whoever stole the sacred artifact.
”God help you when you come face to face with him,” she said, speaking out loud to the burglar, while clutching her purse.
Anyone with information is asked to call Central Detectives at 215-686-3093.