It was a divine “drug bust.”
A worker at an Orthodox seminary in Yonkers found a cache of “drugs” — but soon discovered the priceless objects were of a “holy” different nature.
Drug-sniffing dogs swarmed St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary last week when cops were called for possible illegal narcotics on the scenic, tree-covered campus, WABC reported.
Instead, what they found were first-degree relics — the body or body fragments, such as bone or flesh — of Saint Raphael of Brooklyn, a Syrian immigrant who founded St. Nicholas Cathedral in what is now downtown Brooklyn and was glorified in 2000, according to the Orthodox Church in America (OCA).
“The people that found them didn’t know what they were,” said Father Michael Nasser of the seminary. “They weren’t in a typical container.”
The seminarian who found the suspected contraband quickly grabbed a nearby cop.
“One of our officers who was actually out here at one of these construction sites and doing some traffic, and he was approached by a member of the seminary who thought they recovered some kind of drugs or some type of illegal substances,” Det. Lt. Frank Didomizio of the Yonkers Police Department told the station.
The objects had fallen out of a hole in a plastic bag while being transported to be photographed and catalogued — and miraculously had suffered no apparent damage.
“It’s a spiritual connection for us, maintaining our connection to that person. He lived in the 20th century,” Nasser noted of the saint who died in the Borough of Churches in 1915.
The discovery of the cherished relics wasn’t the only bright spot from the mix-up.
“We got to meet the K-9 units who came out here for a special prayer and blessing and allowed us to thank them for all they do for us at the seminary and the whole community,” Nasser told WABC.
Saint Raphael, the “first Orthodox Christian bishop consecrated on American soil,” founded 30 churches in North America, according to the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America.
Raphael was born in Beirut in 1860 to Syrian parents and came to America in 1895, OCA said. His feast day is celebrated on the first Saturday in November.
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