The monstrance and stoup stolen from Manzano and Pordenone have been found after 40 years

The Carabinieri of the Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of Udine returned to the Parish of San Giorgio di Pordenone and that of San Tommaso Apostolo di Manzano respectively a monstrance and a stoup in white marble stolen from unknown persons in the 1980s and recently seized – in Udine – by the soldiers of the Carabinieri department specialized in the prevention and repression of crimes committed against the cultural heritage with competence in Friuli Venezia Giulia and Trentino Alto Adige.

The monstrance – which will be presented to the faithful on Sunday 12 June 2022 during the Holy Mass at 11.30 at the church of San Giorgio in Pordenone – and the holy water stoup, which will have to be restored, have been returned to their respective parish priests, Don Roberto Laurita and Monsignor Giovanni Rivetti, by the Commander of the TPC Unit of Udine, Maggiore Lorenzo Pella, at the end of an investigation coordinated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Friulian capital – in which the Carabinieri stations competent for the area collaborated – undertaken following the monitoring of the web aimed at searching for illicitly marketed church goods. The two sacred objects had been seized by the Carabinieri of the TPC Nucleus of Udine following a house search ordered by the judicial authority against two individuals who held various ecclesiastical objects which they put up for sale on telematic channels.

Many of the seized assets had been reflected in the “Database of illicitly stolen cultural assets”, the largest database in the world of stolen works of art managed by the TPC Command, where the images and descriptive elements of the monstrance made it possible to ascertain that dealt with the one stolen by unknown persons, on 25 November 1986 from the Parish of San Giorgio in Pordenone. More complex were the searches relating to the holy water stoup of the Parish of San Tommaso Apostolo which, only following a complex reconstruction work carried out by the military working in collaboration with the “historical memories” of the Manzanese, made it possible to determine the exact origin of the artifact weighing about eighty kilograms which, after being illicitly removed by unknown persons, was brought into the possession of the keeper through illegal channels.

The criminal proceedings against the two suspects have been closed but the most important element lies, once again, in the constant monitoring of the online market for artistic goods, including those of a church nature, as in the present case, as well as in the perseverance shown by the soldiers of the Carabinieri Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of Udine which allowed, even after many years, the return home, reinserting them in their own territorial context, of artefacts constituting the historical and devotional memory of the two Friulian parish communities.