When they left, one was carrying his robe and hat – “sanctified pieces” that should not be worn by anyone except priests, he said.<\/p>\n
“I do realise that they look like a costume, and maybe those youngsters took it for fun. But without knowing, they are desacralising it, by using it in the purpose they are not meant to be used.”<\/p>\n
The robe and cap were returned with an apology note.\u00a0<\/span>Photo:\u00a0Supplied<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n A plea for their return was posted on social media, but the theft was not reported to police – Grubacki was hopeful those who took it would do the right thing.<\/p>\n And when he arrived at the temple for Thursday evening’s service, he came across a bag, with his robe, cap, and an apology note inside.<\/p>\n “He said sorry for the troubles and stress,” Grubacki said.<\/p>\n “He promised he won’t be coming again and doing such a thing again, he learned his lesson.”<\/p>\n Upon finding the bag, Grubacki was “super happy” – and said there were “no hard feelings” against the thief.<\/p>\n The thief signed the letter with his first name, which Grubacki chose not to share – he was just relieved they seemed to realise how important the garments were.<\/p>\n “It means a lot not just for me, but for our small community here in Wellington.<\/p>\n “I would gladly shake his hand.”<\/p>\n The items had been in Grubacki’s possession for eight years since he had become a priest, and he brought them from Serbia to Aotearoa when he emigrated seven years ago.<\/p>\n They were “just a piece of cloth” to others, but had a special meaning and purpose for worshipping, and could not be replaced in New Zealand, Grubacki said.<\/p>\n rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After a desperate public plea, precious religious garments stolen from a Wellington church have been returned – complete with an apology note. Just after 2am on Tuesday, CCTV footage showed a trio wandering into the\u00a0Serbian Orthodox Church\u00a0on The Parade in Island Bay, priest Father Predrag Grubacki said. When they left, one was carrying his robe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9025"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9027,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9025\/revisions\/9027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}