Thieves broke into St. Vincent of Lerins Orthodox Church in Benson sometime late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, stripping the building of copper lines and brass worship items and leaving the parish without heat or water. The intrusion forced the small Omaha congregation to cancel its Sunday morning service, and left volunteers scrambling to patch the building back together before the next one.
According to KETV, the break-in caused thousands of dollars in damage and left the church needing to replace stolen items, with thieves appearing to target metal they could sell for scrap. Volunteers spent Wednesday working to repair the church's water and heat systems, the outlet reports, after intruders broke a window that was later boarded up. The church’s GiveSendGo fundraiser describes the same weekend, saying the building was broken into on the night of November 7-8 and that intruders “cut pipes out of the wall, gutted our Furnace/AC,” according to the fundraiser page.
Father Theodore Eklund, the church’s priest, told WOWT that thieves cut the power and that he suspects they used metal saws to strip copper lines, knocking out all of the building’s utilities. Per the WOWT report, Eklund said the thieves made off with about half a dozen chalices, brass candle holders and one set of bells. He also said the intruders managed to get into the sacristy and find the key needed to take a brass bowl used for communion wafers.
Sacred Items Taken, Others Left Behind
Eklund said no one encountered the thieves during the break-in, and he believes they may have been spooked before finishing whatever they set out to do, per KETV. The thieves stole the container holding communion wafers but left the wafers themselves spread across a table inside the church, KETV reports. Eklund said he believes the wafers are truly the body and blood of Christ, and that protecting the blessed sacraments is part of his ordination vows, according to the same outlet.
Accounts differ on exactly what was carried out the door. The church’s fundraiser states that everything made of brass was stolen, while the same report notes that candle holders were left by a door the thieves had propped open. Orthodox Christian news site OrthoChristian reported separately that chalices, candlesticks and other metal items were taken, and that the parish was unable to hold Sunday services after the intrusion was discovered, according to OrthoChristian.
Thieves also left behind saints’ relics, which were damaged in the process, and a tub of valuables near the door, per KETV. WOWT also reported that a black bag containing old relics representing the saints of the Orthodox Christian Church was left behind.
Congregation Vows to Return Next Sunday
The church’s roughly 50-member congregation responded to the missed service by helping the parish recover or worshipping elsewhere over the weekend, according to KETV. Eklund said the congregation would be ready to go back to church the following Sunday despite the setback.
The priest also said the church would forgive the thieves if they returned the stolen items and asked for forgiveness, KETV reports. St. Vincent of Lerins has launched an online fundraiser to help it recover and improve security, with a goal of $60,000 to cover repairs and upgrades including new windows and more secure front doors, according to the same report. The fundraiser had raised more than $24,000 by Wednesday afternoon, per KETV, while WOWT separately reported the total had topped $23,000 toward the same goal.
The break-in echoes an earlier case in Omaha, when police investigated a separate church burglary and vandalism incident and said at the time that they did not believe the two crimes were connected, nor did they see evidence of a broader trend in church break-ins, according to a 2019 WOWT report.
