According to pastor István Jakab, the intent to cause harm, xenophobia, is clearly visible.

Unknown people damaged, smashed and desecrated the trilingual plaque of the church of the Evangelical-Lutheran parish in Arad, István Jakab, the pastor of the church, announced on Monday.

told the Krónikaonline

István Jakab also published photos of the vandalism on his social media page. On these, it can be seen that the board was broken into pieces, its pieces were thrown on the ground, and a toy snake made of silicone was attached to the piece left on the wall.

The pastor filed a report with the police, the crime scene investigators promised to inform them of the results of the investigation in a week, he told the news portal. The Arad County Police Headquarters initiated criminal proceedings in the case on suspicion of vandalism.

According to pastor István Jakab, the intent to cause harm, xenophobia, is clearly visible. "We are bilingual, which is why it is incomprehensible what happened"

- he told Krónikaonline, referring to the multi-national (Hungarian, Romanian, German and Slovak) congregation of more than 500 souls.

He believed that the vandalism could be related to the strengthening of extremist parties in Arad county during the Romanian parliamentary elections on the first of December.

In the county of Partium, the Association for the Unification of Romanians (AUR) received the most votes, based on the number of votes cast for other parties with a similar ideology, 38 percent of voters sympathize with an extremist movement.

The Evangelical-Lutheran church in the city center of Arad, on the city's main street, was designed by the Arad architect Lajos Szántay and consecrated in 1909. The neo-Gothic church was built of red brick, which is why it is also referred to as the "red church".

After the first round of the Romanian presidential election - which has since been annulled - in which Calin Georgescu, who openly sympathizes with fascist ideals, came in first place, a similar incident took place in Medgyes: the Hungarian and German inscriptions on the place name sign of the former Saxon town were painted over with red paint by unknown persons, for the second time this year .

MTI

Photo: Jakab István Facebook