Holy Land: Cross stolen from Church of Loaves and Fishes

Loaves and Fishes mosaic Tabgha

A cross has been stolen from the Church of the Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes in Tabgha on the Sea of Galilee.

Israeli police are investigating the theft of the iron cross from an outdoor altar at the church built on the site where it is believed Jesus performed the miracle of multiplying five loaves and two fishes to feed 5,000 people.

Many pilgrim groups to the Holy Land will have gathered around this altar for Masses.

Georg Röwekamp, from the German Association of the Holy Land (DVHL) which owns the church property, called the theft an "anti-Christian" act. He said: "We found in the morning of August 19 that the wrought-iron altar cross had been broken off by force and disappeared. As this requires strong physical force, it must have been a deliberate act."

Röwekamp said he suspected the thieves arrived at the site by boat, because the property was not open to the public at the time.

"We very much regret this incident, which worries us - not at least after the arson attack in 2015, when persons also entered our premises," he said.

In June 2015, the Church of the Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes was badly damaged in an arson attack. Hebrew-language graffiti scrawled at the site read: 'all idols will be smashed.'

During the fire, a monk and a staff member were hospitalized and treated for smoke inhalation.

In December 2017, a 23-year-old Israeli man was convicted of aggravated arson and two counts of criminal conspiracy.

Attacks on the indigenous Christians of the Holy Land, who are mostly Palestinian Arabs, have grown in recent years as more and more Israeli settlers move into tradition Christian areas. Attacks on Christians have also been documented in Jerusalem.

The Benedictine Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem has been vandalized on five occasions in recent years.

There was an attempted arson attack in 2020, on the Basilica of the Agony, on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem near the Garden of Gethsemane. This important site for pilgrims houses a section of rock where Christ prayed the night before his crucifixion.

Stained glass windows were shattered and a statue of Our Lady in St Stephen Church in Beit Jamal Salesian monastery, 25 miles west of Jerusalem, in September 2017.