Moscow, August 1, 2013
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| One of the robbed churches: the Church of St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki on Ibragimova Street. |
The group consisted of four citizens of Tajikistan. They are suspected of attacks on churches in the Krylatskoye and Sokolinaya Gora Moscow districts.
The detainees are being examined on complicity in other similar crimes.
On July 28, four culprits made an assault on the church of Greatmartyr Demetrius of Thessaloniki on Ibragimova Street, stole the donations of parishioners and opened the reliquaries with saints' relics, reports Interfax. The incident took place at about 1:20 a.m.
Four unidentified persons with a Central Asian appearance entered the church shop, beat up the guard, threatening him with pistols and pipes, bound him with tape and put handcuffs on him. Then they penetrated into the church through scaffolding, stole jewelry and parishioners’ donations from it, opened three reliquaries and left. The guard was freed by road workers who had heard his cries for help.
A criminal case has been opened. It is not the first case of attack on St Demetrius' of Thessaloniki Church lately. In the middle of June, an unidentified man broke into it and stole the silver and gold coverings from three icons with the total value of about 0.5 million rubles (over $15,000).Earlier, on the night of July 19, at 2:42 (Moscow time) the guard of a church in northwest Moscow called the police. This is where the Church of the Mother of God in Krylatskoye is located.
"The man reported that five unidentified persons, threatening him with an item like a pistol, seized the keys of the entrance door of the church, entered inside, stole jewelry and disappeared," said a press-service staff member.
The robbers reportedly stole gold decorations that the parishioners had left near the icons for their to be melted down and made into a casement.