A recent rash of break-ins at local churches has police searching for the sacrilegious bandits and pastors pleading for the suspects to come forward.
Pastor Ingo Dutzmann of the First Lutheran Church of Boston on Berkeley Street said items were taken from inside the church at least three times this month. The suspect took a projector, an electric keyboard and donations from a lock box.
But the most recent item, a more than 100-year-old chalice, has hit parishioners pretty hard.
“It is very personally precious,” Dutzmann said.
If the chalice is returned, Dutzmann said he will forgive the crime. “That’s the business we’re in,” he said.
Dutzmann said the chalice was discovered missing on Nov. 20, just days before donation boxes at the Mission Church in Roxbury were damaged in a burglary attempt.
In a burglary earlier this month, that church’s stained-glass window was smashed and about $200 in donations were taken.
Mission Church’s Rev. Raymond Collins said the church was broken into again either Sunday night or early Monday morning.
