Czech police detain suspect in theft of medieval saint's skull from church

PRAGUE, May 14 – Czech police detained a 35-year-old man suspected of stealing a revered 800-year-old saint’s skull from a church in the northern Czech Republic this week, they said on Thursday.

Police and the church reported the theft on Wednesday of the skull, believed to be of Saint Zdislava of Lemberk, who lived from 1220 to 1252. She was known for her generosity and work for the poor, and Pope John Paul II canonised her in 1995.

Fuzzy security camera footage showed a person dressed in black with the relic running between the benches in the Saint Lawrence and Saint Zdislava basilica in Jablonne v Podjestedi, 110 km (68 miles) north of Prague, police said.

Investigators “managed to obtain information about the location of the rare relic,” police said on X on Thursday evening.

After the relic’s theft, Prague Archbishop Stanislav Pribyl had called the case “devastating news”, adding the skull was revered by pilgrims. REUTERS