Bells keep disappearing

Two bronze bells were snatched from a Woodside church the same night as the heavily-publicized St. Mary’s bell robbery only a few blocks away.
Reverend Daniel Degyansky, the pastor of St. John Chrysostom Church, said he noticed that two bronze bells had vanished on Sunday, March 30.
One bell is larger - 18 inches in diameter at the opening and about 150 pounds - and the second is smaller - 14 inches in diameter and about 100 pounds. Both are from Greece, donated to the church by the Brennan family in memory of late relatives.
Degyansky, who has served as the church’s pastor for 11 years and could not recall any other criminal acts at his house of worship, speculated that the bells would be sold as scrap metal and that the thief was not acting alone.
“When we hung those bells it took three or four people to hang them. I’m assuming that it took four people to take them down quietly,” Degyansky said. When he heard about the robbery at St. Mary’s a short distance away, he immediately thought, “This was done by a group of people, and it was planned.”
At St. John Chrysostom, located at 70-29 45th Avenue, the robbery occurred at the start of the four-week Orthodox Lenten season. Easter, which Degyansky said is their most important religious holiday, falls on Sunday, April 27.
However, the church’s bell towers might not be entirely empty come Easter Sunday.
“There were two small bells that were left behind, but I took them down because I didn’t want them to be stolen,” Degyansky said.
Degyansky asked that anyone with information about the missing bells call the police.

- Christina Santucci