A bronze 200-kilogram statue of the Virgin Mary has been found cut up into six pieces days after it was stolen from a Roman Catholic church in the city of Gothenburg.
The statue, which was around 1.75 metres (5’7″) in height, was stolen from the St. Mary Magdalene’s church in Hisingen, where it lay in a custom-built area outside of the church building, Goteborgs Posten reports.
The statue was later found on Thursday afternoon in a storage room next to a transformer, cut up into six different parts.
Doris Wennerberg, the parish assistant at the Mary Magdalene Catholic Parish, said that she hoped the statue could be put back together and placed back where it had been stolen from.
“We will review the security, it has been stolen once so there is a risk that it will be taken again and perhaps in an even worse way. It must be repaired and we must get a new safety device before we can set it up again,” she said.
According to criminal and freight inspector at the Stockholm Police Jan-Åke Törnhage, thefts of bronze objects and statues are becoming more and more common across Sweden, with thieves likely looking to melt the statues down in order to sell the metal.
The theft comes just over a year since Swedish crown jewels belonging to former Swedish King Charles IX along with the funeral crown of his wife Christina of Holstein-Gottorp were stolen from Strängnäs cathedral.
The jewels, said to be worth 65 million kronor ($7.2 million), were later recovered by police several months later in the Stockholm area and a 22-year-old man was arrested in connection to the theft.
Church desecrations and robberies have been a major issue in other European countries like France where an estimated three churches are attacked every day on average.