Thieves steal 120 years of archives from Chute-a-Blondeau, Ont., church

An eastern Ontario house of worship has lost more than 120 years of archival records after the region's third church burglary in the past three months.

Last week, Rachelle St-Denis-Lachaine arrived at l'Église de Saint-Joachim in the small town of Chute-à-Blondeau, Ont., to find a window jimmied open and the side door propped open with a box of parish candles.

"There were papers all over the floor, and I realized the safe was gone," said St-Denis-Lachaine, a church volunteer.

The safe contained about $1,000, said St-Denis-Lachaine, but more importantly, ten books filled with church records dating back all the way to 1887.

"All the history of the parish is in there," said St-Denis-Lachaine. "All the people who were born here, married, had their funeral here."

Third church burglary since July

L'Église de Saint-Joachim is one of three churches near Hawkesbury, Ont., about 80 kilometres east of Ottawa, that's been burglarized in recent months.

Across the Ottawa River in Grenville, Que., Presbytere Grenville janitor Philippe St-Jean recalled how this July, someone smashed open the church's safe and made off with $250.

Like the theft from l'Église de Saint-Joachim, it wasn't the loss of the money that hurt. For Presbytere Grenville, it was the approximately $6,000 in damage caused during the break-in, said St-Jean.

"We're barely surviving with the little amount of people that come to church," said St-Jean. "How can I say it — it's awful, it's awful." 

"God is here to help us, and they're stealing from him."

Police are investigating both incidents, as well as a third theft from a church in Hawkesbury in July. They haven't said yet whether the burglaries are connected.