The Finnish police keep open the investigation of the fire on Christmas day of a church when mass was being celebrated, from the conviction that it was a

malicious

act .

"I guess now there are suspicions of malicious intent because no other reasonable cause has been found," Ruokolahti parish vicar Leena Haakana said.

A century-old church in South Karelia, in the Finnish municipality of Rautjarvi, near the southeastern border with Russia, was completely destroyed in a fire that was noticed by the parish priest while he was saying mass on Sunday morning.

Between 30 and 40 parishioners who were present were

able to leave the historic building in time.

Despite the speed with which the flames spread, there were no casualties.

The wooden church, however, was completely destroyed despite the effort to save it from the firefighters.

According to crime commissioner Mika Salminen, ropes had been attached to the side doors of the church, eyewitnesses observed.

Police believe there was a conscious effort to prevent people from leaving the temple at the time the fire broke out.

A few hours later,

a private house located some 30 kilometers away also burned

down, and in which the police later found the body of the person who lived there.

According to investigator Timo Valle, the possibility that both incidents are related is being studied.

It is not the first time that a church has gone up in flames in Finland and it is not the first time that it is suspected that it was subjected to a deliberate act of destruction.

At the end of last September, the Kiihtelysvaara church in the southeast of the country was literally engulfed in flames.

Police investigated the incident as an aggravated property damage case.

The specialized fire teams did not detect, with the help of trained dogs, whether there was flammable liquid, but they did not rule out that the fire originated in the electrical core of the church, where according to witnesses the fire started.

On that occasion there were also parishioners in the temple.

No victims were lamented.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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