Flushing Church Robbed During Christmas Day Mass
Police of the 109th Precinct arrive to begin investigating the robbery at St. Mel’s Roman Catholic Church in Flushing.

Photo Roy Renna/BMR Breaking News

St. Mel’s Roman Catholic Church, 28-20 154th St., Flushing, was robbed while the 9 a.m. Mass was being celebrated on December 25, Christmas Day. Some $30,000 in the form of cash and checks that had been collected at three Masses on Christmas Eve and a Mass at 7:30 a.m. Christmas morning and placed in a steel security lockbox was taken when at about 20 minutes into the service, two thieves entered the church through a back door, went to the sacristy, a room where the Rev. Father Christopher Turczany, the church pastor, prepares for Mass, opened the church safe and removed the lockbox.

A parishioner saw someone putting the lockbox, which weighted between 50 and 100 pounds, in the trunk of an SUV. The parishioner noted the number of the SUV’s Vermont license plates, and police later determined that the SUV was registered to a resident of New York state. No arrests had been made as of press time.