Bizarre True Crime Volume 3: 20 Nutty & Astounding True Crime Stories by Ben Oakley

Author:Ben Oakley [Oakley, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Twelvetrees Camden
Published: 2021-09-08T00:00:00+00:00

Theft of an Entire Church

In a remote Russian village, a priest went to visit a 200-year-old local church and discovered the building had vanished from the face of the earth.

Komarovo

The Church of Christ’s Resurrection was built in 1809 in the central Russian village of Komarovo, an isolated area that has few citizens. Regardless, clergyman like Father Vitaly would visit occasionally to keep a check on it.

The church had become a school for disabled children during the Soviet era before it was closed down in 1998, and ultimately its ownership returned to the church.

The visits were spread apart and were never well planned out. Though the church was not in use, it still required visits from Russian Orthodox priests to check up on it, as it was still owned by the church organisation and the local Ivanovo-Voznesenskaya and Kineshemskaya diocese.

Komarovo is in the Ivanovo region of Russia, almost 200 miles north-east of Moscow, and situated near a district of St. Petersburg. The population of the village fluctuates between 1,200 and 1,600.

Due to the relative peace and serenity of the region, Father Vitaly was never concerned the church would come to any harm. Yet, when he made a visit in the Winter of 2008, he was shocked to discover the entire church had vanished.

The vanishing

Due to the isolation of the church, the disappearance was not noticed immediately, hence why Vitaly found himself in such a state of shock. It had been only three months since the last priest had visited the site.

Vitaly heard rumours the church was going to be resuming services again at some point in the future, despite being empty for many years beforehand. The previous visit in July 2008 was to host a surveyor at the site to see how good or bad of a state the building was in.

The survey of the large, two-storey church found that it was structurally sound and would have been suitable and safe for people to worship in, despite needing some minor decorative work.

Yet, when Vitaly arrived in that cold dark Winter of 2008, all that remained of the church were its foundations and small sections of the walls. It appeared, to Vitaly at least, that someone had quite literally stolen the church.

He believed a group of men had taken the church apart brick by brick and whisked it away to be sold for scrap. But who had done it? How had they done it? And why had the village of 1,200 people not even noticed it was being removed?

Theft of an entire church

In rural Russia, it’s not uncommon for criminals to target religious icons stored in churches because they can fetch a good price. Unemployment in those areas are high, with petty crime and alcoholism being widespread. But an entire church?

Vitaly spoke to the press; “In many villages in central Russia sites of historical interest are being dismantled and people suffer by being deprived of their cultural heritage. This is not an isolated case. We have sent a letter to local prosecutors. Who exactly did this, the investigation will show.

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