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EUROPE | FEBRUARY 23, 1998 VOL. 151 NO. 8 |
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Priest Versus Pilferers Thieves have been looting Czech churches. But now a crimebusting cleric is on their trail By MASSIMO CALABRESI
"We are at war," says Father Vladimir Kellnar, the youthful conservator of Prague's Roman Catholic Archdiocese, who is on a crusade against art thieves. "The post-1989 plundering of Czech churches far exceeds the damage sustained during World War I or World War II," he says. Police have registered nearly 4,000 church and chapel burglaries since 1989, with thieves stealing $20 million worth of paintings, statues, liturgical items and relics. That represents the worst pillaging of Czech Catholic treasures since Protestant and Catholic troops laid waste to each other's churches across Europe in the brutal Thirty Years War, which ended in 1648. Traffickers in sacred objects now rank with drug and gun runners among the country's most prosperous criminals. Father Kellnar is out to stop them. The priest studied art history at an underground seminary during communist rule, and after his ordination in 1987 he pursued his hobby in and around the wealth of gothic, Renaissance and baroque churches of the Czech capital. But with the loosening of law enforcement and the opening of borders that followed communism's demise, religious art suddenly became a target for theft, and Kellnar's hobby a profession. Priest turned private eye, he not only tends his six parishes but also tracks stolen art in the Czech Republic and abroad, working with police to build cases and trying to protect what treasures remain. "We know which antiques dealers are suspect and we keep watch on them," Kellnar says. "We go to flea markets in the Czech Republic and neighboring countries in search of stolen artifacts and cooperate closely with the police in Austria and Germany." Although it is illegal in the Czech Republic to export most religious and cultural treasures, Kellnar complains that the penalties are too weak to deter the criminals. "Punishments are ridiculously low," he says. And with smuggled art works bringing top dollar abroad, the risks are worth the rewards. "The German [authorities] ask us why we let people steal from our churches," says Jiri Belis of the State Institute of Monument Care. "My reply to that is, 'Why do you keep buying the stuff?'" In March 1994, Thomas Ruweid's 17th century masterpiece, Coronation With Thorns, was sold at the Austrian state auction house in Vienna, the Dorotheum, even though the painting--stolen in 1992--is a listed Czech national treasure and banned from export. The painting is still missing. Kellnar has built up a network of informants, church authorities and art experts around Europe to help in his work. He also collaborates frequently with the Czech police, but complains that both police and church lack resources to investigate crimes. He says only seven police officers are assigned to track stolen art works at the national level. Belis' government-funded institute has a budget of about $300,000 a year for church security, but that doesn't go far with alarm systems starting at $3,000 and only 500 of the country's 5,000 churches outfitted so far. But Belis says they are experimenting with invisible numerical codes legible only under ultraviolet light and other methods to help identify suspected stolen objects. Kellnar's calling can be dangerous. Robbers killed one priest, Father Jaroslav Kadlec, 66, during a 1990 burglary in Prague, and have injured others. Father Jaroslav Dvorak, 85, recalls a 1994 encounter with a pair of thieves who rang the doorbell of his rectory in Sudejov, southeast of Prague. "I opened the door and they tried to push their way in," he says. "I started wrestling with them and one of them hit me with a pistol." Dvorak lost the use of an eye in the attack and suffers pain in his knees. He says he would not offer physical resistance if it happened again, "But if I had a gun I would certainly shoot." Kellnar and the police are able to recover no more than about 10% of what is stolen, so much of his work is preventive. Late last month he spent a day visiting several churches outside Prague, documenting their contents and rummaging through their attics to take items back to the city for safety or restoration. "We keep losing," he says. "The thieves are faster, but that's all the more reason to work harder." With 227 churches robbed of $1.3 million worth of art last year alone, Kellnar has plenty of hard work ahead of him. --Reported by Jan Stojaspal /Prague |
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he sign outside St. Wenceslas Church near the Czech town of
Kladno says it all: "Please don't damage the doors or windows.
There's nothing of value here." Six times since 1989, thieves
have forced their way into the church, taking everything from
delicate statuary to altar ornaments. And the sign could speak
for the entire Kladno region. Of its 68 churches, robbers have
raided all but two since the fall of communism eight years ago.
They even burgled the belfry at St. George's Church 10 km away
in October 1996, making off with a 256-kg bell cast in 1504.