A rare book dating back nearly 500 years has been stolen from a church in Suffolk after apparently being prised from a locked display case.
The 1548 English edition of the Paraphrases of Erasmus was taken from St Mary’s Church in Chediston, near Halesworth.
The Rev Dr Edmund Smith, curate of St Mary’s, told the BBC he discovered that the book was missing after being contacted by a visitor who had hoped to see it.
The Paraphrases were written by Dutch Christian scholar Desiderius Erasmus to explain parts of the New Testament. An English translation was produced following a request by Catherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII.
In 1547, Edward VI ordered that copies of the English translation be placed in every parish church but many were subsequently lost or destroyed under Mary I's reign, making the Chediston edition extremely rare.
Smith described the stolen volume as an important part of the church’s heritage.
“An item like this is part of our common heritage - they are part of what makes this church this church,” he said.
“They are the tie we have back to generations before us – to lose it, by far, leaves us poorer.”
He pointed to the vulnerability of other precious items in churches, saying that the Church of England "was never equipped for the modern age of crime".
"A lot of sacred objects like this are just left in church because we have historically trusted that churches are a place of refuge and safety," he told BBC Radio Suffolk.
He appealed to whoever took the book to return it, describing the theft of a sacred object from a church as a “particularly grave sin”.
“We hope that will weigh on their heart and they will be moved to return it and seek forgiveness, which we will gladly give,” he said.
Catholic writer and commentator Mark Lambert also lamented the theft, noting the irony that the volume had survived “nearly 500 years of English religious upheaval” only to be stolen from a quiet country church.
Writing on X, he said there was "something rather sad" about Rev Smith's observation about the risk to church treasures from crime.
"Quite apart from its monetary value, this is exactly the sort of object that really does constitute a piece of England’s common inheritance: not something manufactured for a museum, but a book that has remained in the life of a particular parish while kings, governments, religions and generations came and went," he said.
"Five hundred years of history survived. Let’s hope one thief doesn’t get to write its final chapter."
