The ingenuity of all sorts of crooks is directly proportional to the naivety of their victims. This is a common truth. However, there are times when human credulity goes beyond all limits. It turns out that some are able to believe everything. Even that they will buy a place in heaven!
The story described here is not about the medieval indulgence trade at all. It took place much later, namely in the mid-1930s in northeastern Romania. The originators of the original "business" of selling "tickets" to paradise were a few local scammers. The case was reported in Poland by the Poznań Poranny Daily in the issue of May 12, 1936.
Heaven for the equivalent of PLN 200
It started in the first months of 1936, when enterprising gentlemen set up an office of their sect near the city of Iasi, specifically designed to promote the entire "business". Once they had a large group of followers around them, they proceeded to the second stage of the sly plan.
Map of Romania with Iasi marked on it, it was in this area that the "heavenly travel and place sales agencies" operated.
As the Poznań daily wrote, after paying the equivalent of about 200 zlotys (approximately two thousand modern zlotys): the candidate for hell or purgatory received personal certificate that he had legally acquired this and that number of a place in heaven .
Excerpt from the article from "Dziennik Morning". St. Peter looks suspiciously at the pass to eternal life.
Additionally, each of the "clients" of Heavenly Travel Agencies and Heaven's Place Sales on the back of his pass to eternal life he could read that this card belongs to be taken to the grave and presented to the heavenly gates to avoid misunderstandings and get the right place.
The business was going very well, and there was no shortage of naive people ready to pay for a special ID. In just a few months, about 280 people who wanted to ensure heavenly peace bought a "ticket to heaven". Considering that the "ticket" was not cheap, it can be assumed that it was bought by wealthy people, not some ignorant peasants. Perhaps there were also criminals among them, afraid of the hellish torments that await them after death?
In the end, however, the Romanian police got interested in the enterprising crooks, which one fine morning entered the heavenly travel agency and sold a place in heaven. Of course, the arrest was not without an attempt to bribe the officers.
The equivalent of such notes was enough and a certain place in heaven was already there. It's just your business.
The culprits caught red-handed wanted to give them a bribe in the form of ... tickets to heaven . Apparently, however, the police officers were incorruptible or, more likely, deemed the "currency" worthless and put the fraudsters in custody.
Unfortunately, the Poznań newspaper did not disclose what sentence the dealers of places in heaven had received, only informing its readers that they had been imprisoned. One thing seems certain. Naive amateurs of paid salvation are unlikely to get their money back. Well, but at least for a moment they were sure there was a place in heaven waiting for them.
Source:
Trivia is the essence of our website. Short materials devoted to interesting anecdotes, surprising details from the past, strange news from the old press. Reading that will take you no more than 3 minutes, based on single sources. This particular material is based on:
- A "brick place" in heaven for PLN 200, " Dziennik Poranny ”, May 12, 1933, p. 4.