Monday, March 29, 2010
U.S. Church sprayed with hate graffiti on Palm Sunday
Click to read original article from KTVU.com
OAKLAND, Calif. -- Worshipers were greeted by words and images of hate – giant Swastikas and profane graffiti – when they arrived for one of the holiest days of the year, Palm Sunday, at an Oakland Greek Orthodox church, officials said.
Church officials at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral Of The Ascension said the vandals attacked sometime during the night.
“They came up here and they defaced our church, and there's just absolutely no reason for that at all,” said George Polyzos, the parish council president. “This kind of stuff shouldn't be happening.”
The images left the congregation struggling for words.
“We're starting off our holiest week with someone writing bad language on the church, putting a swastika on the church, and this is one of our holiest days,” said Carol Kassouf, the parish council vice president. “To have that, it truly breaks my heart.”
Oakland investigators took photos of the offensive graffiti in the hopes the vandals may have left a clue behind in the way the words were written.
“We'll go ahead and take this picture and take it back and have the gang unit take a look at it and they'll go ahead and see if the actual tagging's on file or if they recognize it from other places,” Officer Mark Douglas told KTVU.
The officers also took away what may be another piece of evidence – an abandoned skateboard.
Meanwhile inside at the services, it was up to Father Tom Zaferes to attempt to calm the outraged church members.
“It just put a pall over everything,” he told KTVU. “People are just going – ‘Why would this happen to our church? Why would people want to do this to a Christian church that has been very involved in the lives of the community?’”
Church officials said they would have work crews on the scene as soon as possible to remove the graffiti.