A Romanian man who jumped onto the main altar at Saint Peter’s Basilica was apprehended by security staff at the Vatican on February 7.
A video capturing the incident shows the individual jumping onto the altar, removing the altar cloth, and kicking six gold candle holders. The candelabras damaged are worth roughly $31,000.
“This is an episode of a person with a serious mental disability, who has been detained by the Vatican Police and then placed at the disposal of the Italian authorities,” Matteo Bruni, the director of the Holy See Press Office, told the ANSA news agency.
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Constructed above the tomb of Saint Peter, who was one of the twelve apostles, the altar is considered one of the holiest sites in Christianity.
Above the altar is a 95-foot-high canopy with four bronze columns, known as a baldacchino, made by Gian Lorenzo Bernini around 1633. Ahead of the 2025 Jubilee year, Bernini’s baldacchino underwent major restoration, which was funded by the Knights of Columbus for around $768,000, in 2024.
As such, approximately 32 million are expected to travel to the Vatican this year as part of a pilgrimage in honor of jubilee.
It remains unclear why the man, whose identity has not been revealed, started the incident.
This is not the first time objects at the Vatican have been intentionally damaged. In 2019, a similar incident involving a man throwing a candelabra from the main altar occurred.
The worst incident of this kind took place in 1972, when Hungarian geologist Laszlo Toth took a hammer to Michelangelo’s marble sculpture Pietà (1498–99), which is also in St Peter’s Basilica. Though the statue was seriously damaged, it was restored and is protected behind bullet-proof glass.
