March 2014: On Saturday, March 29th, St. Stephen’s cathedral, the parish church of Breitenfeld (Josefstadt), the parish church of Neuottakring (Ottakring) as well as the Lazaristenkirche (Neubau) were vandalised. The spokesperson of the diocese said the attacks have never before been so hard.

In the parish church of Breitenfeld, four statues were knocked over and thereby destroyed. A part of the baptismal fountain was demolished. In the Lazaristenkirche, the perpetrator/s smashed almost all statutes, tore down the corpus of a wooden crucifix and broke its arms. The fingers of the solid stone statue of St. Vincent were broken off.
In the cathedral of St. Stephen’s, a 37-year-old man was caught knocking over and thereby demolishing the statue of St. Jude. Before he could tear done the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, bystanders stopped and held him until police arrived. The perpetrator was calling the faithful „marionettes“.
Independent journalist Andreas Unterberger reported that he uttered Islamist motivations and that his name was Ibrahim. Nonetheless, the police released the man saying that he was psychologically deranged and that there was no reason to keep him in custody.

Sources and further information:

http://wien.orf.at/news/stories/2639059/

www.andreas-unterberger.at/2014/03/der-schwerste-antikirchliche-vandalismus-der-nachkriegszeit-aber-bischoefe-und-politik-schweigen/

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