A holy water font stolen from a southwest suburban church shortly after Easter services was returned Wednesday, a little worse for wear.
Rev. Thomas Loya, pastor of Annunciation of the Mother of God Byzantine Catholic Church in Homer Glen, picked up the silver-and-gold vessel from Midlothian police about 2:30 p.m.
Loya said the thief “had stripped some parts off” it, but police and the security company that found it did “a wonderful job preserving all the pieces,” Loya said. “We can probably get it back close to new. To the untrained eye, it looks fine.”
Loya said he thinks the thief took advantage of Annunciation’s open-door policy, which allows worshipers in at any time during the day. The vessel was stolen from a table near the altar after the church’s Easter services on April 12.
Loya found the vessel gone and its contents poured out the next day.
“I felt mocked,” he said, recalling a “very real, very deep sense of defilement” that hit him.
Three days after he contacted Will County Sheriff’s police, a Midlothian security company employee, while on a break, found the vessel behind the company’s building.
Chet Donati, owner of DMC Security, said the firm’s exterior video camera didn’t capture any images of the person who had the font. Donati theorized the thief was walking past the business and ditched it when the employee came out.
Donati, of Homer Glen, said he called the Midlothian police chief. “We thought it was from one of the churches over here,” he said.
On Wednesday, Midlothian police reunited Loya and the font.
The theft occurred almost three years to the day after two encased 12-inch-by-9-inch icons — silver and gilt-edged hand-painted religious images — of Jesus and the Virgin Mary were stolen from podiums in front of the church. Loya reported those thefts to the sheriff’s office on April 5, 2006.
In his complaints to sheriff’s police, Loya set the material value of the icons at $2,500 and the font at $1,200. All had been made in Greece.
But the real value was in the sacrifices parishioners had made, and in the objects’ sacredness, Loya said Wednesday.
Despite the fact that other sacred items could be stolen, Annunciation will continue to keep its doors open during the day, he said.
The daytime access, Loya said, is “an oasis for people to come to pray.”
“It’s a very, very valued ministry, and we’re going to continue to do it,” he said.
