London Churches Suffer Arson Attacks, Marked with ‘666’, Pentagrams

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KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty Images
Victoria Friedman

Three churches in east London were subjected to multiple arson attacks in the space of two days, with each door being scratched with anti-Christian satanic pentagrams and the number 666.

The first attack occurred against St John’s Church in Stratford, where a vandal set fire to the external door on Tuesday night, causing minor damage. The arson came following other acts of vandalism in recent days, including doors being scratched and posters being ripped down from notice boards, according to the Newham Recorder.

A similar attack occurred at St John’s on Wednesday morning, with refuse being set alight at another church door next to the vicarage. A second attempt to set the door on fire was made later that same day at around 7:30 p.m.

A small fire was also set on Wednesday at the door of Cann Hall Methodist Church in Leytonstone, in what church secretary John Edney said was the second arson attack to which the place of worship had been subjected.

Mr Edney told the East London & West Essex Guardian that the main doors are “badly scarred with burn marks” and the notice board is “completely destroyed”.

At the time of the incident there was a group of children in the Methodist church, with the Daily Mail reporting the daughter of the church secretary as urging parishioners to “be vigilant — our church building was vandalised this morning — satanic symbols scratched on the doors and a pile of rubbish with flammable liquid on was set alight outside the side church door”.

She added: “That was bad enough but also our minister was working in the building and a childminding group were using the hall which the door enters into. A hall Full of adults and CHILDREN !!! Thankfully the smoke was detected and the fire put out by a very brave childminder.”

At around midnight on Thursday, a fire was set outside of a third church, St Matthew’s Church on Dyson Road in West Ham, destroying the door.

A police spokesman said: “At this early stage in the investigation, the fires are being treated as suspicious and the incidents are being investigated by the North East area’s Community Support Unit, who are keeping an open mind as to the motive.”

In March 2018, St Mary’s Catholic Church in Great Yarmouth was desecrated in a Satanic attack when an arsonist removed a sacred icon from the altar and replaced it with a picture of the Devil and set small fires in the interior, the attack being the second committed in four months.

In October 2018, a radical atheist admitted to setting small fires outside a Methodist church and a Sikh temple in Scotland the previous August, telling the court he had “issues” with religion and committed the attacks to make a “political statement”.

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