hermitage

They have found it: the painting of the Virgin of the Cortijo and the staff of the Virgin, an old missal. Table linens and ecclesiastical clothing and even a Lego Millennium Falcon. We are talking about one of those meaningless fortuitous discoveries. On October 31, 2025, a robbery occurred in La Ermita de Our Lady of the Farmhousein Murillo de Río Leza. At dawn, in a rural temple without cameras or surveillance, they took a silver chalice and an 18th century painting, valued between 10,000 and 12,000 euros. And many other things. Eight months later, almost everything has reappeared 90 kilometers away, in an occupied home in Navarra’s Valdorba, mixed up among belongings. A Belgian glove thief. For more than eight months, the Civil Guard has been carrying out an open investigation with hardly any clues. But a common pattern: rural sacred art in isolated hermitages with hardly any security systems. An easy goal, perhaps too prosaic. And La Rioja is no stranger to this type of theft: the Diocese of Calahorra and La Calzada-Logroño has been claiming for years pieces attributed to the legendary Belgian thief Erik the Belgian, whose trail reaches the Netherlands and the United States. The difference with the Murillo case is the unusual speed of the recovery and the domestic origin of the discovery. Besides, the real ErikRené Alphonse van den Berghe, died in El Palo (Málaga) on June 19, 2020, after help recover the size of the Virgin of Nalda. After more than 600 thefts in 52 museums and places of worship, he changed sides to recover historical heritage. Taking care of other people’s business. The Prevention and Citizen Attention Brigade and the Judicial Police Group carried out the eviction of the people occupying the property, together with the officers from the Tafalla police station. And they saw that the Valdorba house even hid a huge wall clock. Part of the abandoned objects was given and they could not identify the owner. The Foral Police of Navarre contacted the Diocesan Heritage Delegation and, by cross-referencing the complaint with local news, they confirmed the coincidence. After the eviction of its occupants, the Foral Police of Navarra has stumbled upon the stash of the Riojan robbery by chance. He confirmed the coincidence with the Diocesan Heritage Delegation and now the big question arises: where is the rest? Among the pieces recovered and already returned to the parish of San Esteban are the painting of the Virgen del Cortijo, the missal, the staff, ecclesiastical clothing and musical instruments (a tuba!). But the silver chalice, another missal and the image of the Child Jesus carried by the Virgin remain unlocated. The most expensive thing is missing. A diverse loot. There are hypotheses, but no proven facts. It is suspected of a black market for sacred artfueled by antique dealers, second-hand buyers and organized gangs that attack rural hermitages at their own risk and expense. The Civil Guard has dismantled entire plots dedicated to this trafficking. Already in the summer of 2020 they recovered almost one hundred objects of enormous valuein addition to 165,000 euros in cash. Objects from the 17th and 18th centuries that did not reach resale. Moving a tuba or a wall clock is not easy. But the stash is so heterogeneous that another hypothesis speaks of mere accumulation, that compulsive behavior of accumulation and a pattern that psychiatry links to Diogenes syndrome, characterized by collecting heterogeneous objects without awareness of illness. This is what happened after the theft of the Codex Calixtinus. Unshielded heritage. Murillo’s case joins a long list of thefts in Rioja and neighboring temples: the Écija chalice sold in a gold buy from Logroño 22 years after its abduction; the door of the San Torcuato tabernacle recovered 45 years after its theft at a Madrid auction; or the reliefs of Briones that the Civil Guard continues to track in Holland and the United States. They all share the same diagnosis: the lack of systematic inventory of ecclesiastical heritage leaves these pieces off the radar until they appear by chance, complaint or illegal sale. The Diocese of Calahorrana insists that thefts against heritage do not prescribe and that each recovery, rather than a preventive strategy, depends on collaboration mechanisms between security forces, antique dealers and diocesan heritage delegations. As long as the chalice and the image of the Child Jesus remain missing, the case of Murillo de Río Leza will continue to be an open file. Robberies with tradition. The looting of sacred art in Spain seems to identify a problem: there is a lack of professionals to inventory it and provide an appropriate historical framework. Impossible to forget the two young people who sneaked into a church in Sevillethey tried on the priest’s liturgical clothing, lit candles and took mocking photos in front of the altar before going out in costume on the street, mocking the parishioners who saw them passing by. In Murcia, in León, some thieves climbed the bell tower of a church with barely 300 residents with ropes and harnesses to steal a bust of Marcus Aurelius from the 4th century. The Civil Guard recovered it weeks later in the trunk of a carat a gas station in Córdoba. In Granada, some Poor Clare nuns did not even notice the disappearance of a sculpture of Saint Marina de la Cortona until the National Police located it in a gallery in New York, ready for auctioned for 350,000 euros. In Barcelona, ​​a couple posed as needy people to sneak into a parish in Nou Barris and steal the money intended to pay for children’s school trips. They even took the priest’s cell phone. In Murcia and Alicante, a gang of teenagers looted up to 20 temples to finance online betting and club nights. And in Valladolid they took even the hosts consecrated in the middle of Christmas. In addition to those of God, it is clear that temples of worship need extra eyes. Images | XX In Xataka |