Source: Telegraph
Understands a secret scheme.
Criminal gangs dealing in church relics sell relics for €50,000. The bigger and stronger a given saint is, the more the price of a part of his remains rises.
This is what anti-mafia officers from GDBOP told “Telegraph”. Only a week ago, the biggest operation was done in line with the cultural and historical values. In the course of it, the relics of over 20 saints and another 500 church artifacts were discovered. They are all about to be handed over to the church again. It was established that most of the relics disappeared from the Rila Monastery in the 1970s. “It’s a huge collectibles business worldwide. Relics go to private collections, and collectors exchange them. There are secret auctions. I have heard that they even break off one part of the relics and sell another. Even now you can see ads on the Internet,” Archimandrite Nikanor, the abbot of the Chernogorsk Monastery, told the Telegraph.
“The groups that deal with stolen church values are extremely specific, they are a separate clique. They act conspiratorially, they are very closed. There are 4 levels in their hierarchy. The first and lowest are the diggers. Those who go and with metal detectors look for and then dig up the artifacts. Then there are the numismatists. The diggers work with specific numismatists who look at the finds and tell which ones are valuable and which ones might sell better. The third level is the resellers, and already above them are the middlemen who are in contact with people who organize auctions for top collectors,” explained special police officers from the GDBOP. According to them, the arrested Velizar Kostadinov from Dryanovo, in whose properties the relics of the saints were found, was high in the hierarchy and had connections with very rich people from Russia – possible buyers.
According to the law, the punishment that Velizar Kostadinov, who was arrested and released yesterday under house arrest, can receive is up to 6 years in prison. His lawyer claims that he did not hide the church relics, but only protected them from damage. His guilt and connections with foreign countries will still have to be proven. “Theoretically, whoever steals from the church should be struck by lightning. But apparently it doesn’t happen very often since this business continues to operate. My personal opinion is that this is sacrilege. Punishment, however, is God’s work. There is God and he decides,” Archimandrite Nicanor also stated.
Deputy head of the anti-mafia Kalin Litov to “Telegraph”: We used an undercover policeman
“The investigation lasted several months. There was also an undercover police officer. Icons, reliquaries, relics of saints, a gospel, a manuscript in Old Bulgarian and many objects related to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church were found,” Deputy Director of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church Kalin Litov told the Telegraph. According to him, some of the artifacts have disappeared from the Rila Monastery. There are reports that a 6-figure sum was offered for a metropolitan’s staff. Among the relics discovered were those of St. John Chrysostom and St. Pantaleimon.
There is still no trace of the remains of St. John the Baptist
One of the most scandalous thefts of church artifacts took place in our country in 2012. Then in Sliven, part of the relics of St. John the Forerunner, left in the metropolitan church in Sliven, were stolen. To this day there is no trace of them. It is assumed that they were exported years ago and are now in a private collection. Immediately after the brazen assault, the then Metropolitan Ioanniquis asked the Apache to return them because they were healing and God would punish him, but the man in question did not respond.
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