Thief Swipes Religious Relic Left Outside E Harlem Church: NYPD

EAST HARLEM, NY — A thief swiped a backpack left outside an East Harlem church that contained a sacred relic brought to New York City all the way from Italy, police said.

A 27-year-old church volunteer at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church on East 116th Street set his backpack down near a shrine set up outside the church building on Sunday, Oct. 13 to lead a prayer when an unknown man picked the bag up and walked off, police said. The volunteer was only distracted for a few minutes.

Teddy Thongratnachat told the New York Post that nobody in the prayer group noticed the robbery. The church volunteer took to Facebook on the day of the robbery to ask the thief to return the sacred reliquary that was inside his backpack.

"Please pray for the person that took my bag that they will return my bag or at least the valuable contents within which includes a Reliquary containing a stone from Mt. Gargano in Italy where St. Michael the Archangel appeared," Thongratnachat said in the post.

The church volunteer said the reliquary belonged to two members of the church's congregation, who were lending the sacred object to the church.

Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS (8477).