“Angel of Harmony” Statue Destroyed.

On Sept. 17, 2024, a maniac used construction equipment to destroy The Angel of Harmony statue that stood outside the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica in Missouri. The 14-foot-high sculpture of welded stainless steel was created by Polish-American artist Wiktor Szostalo (born 1952).

The sculpture had been on public display for 25 years before the goon knocked it from its pedestal with a heavy boom lift, mangling the statue in the process. After demolishing the sculpture the culprit ran off. While attempting to escape he fired a round from a handgun into an unoccupied parked car.

Police officers used a K9 unit to track down and arrest the ne’er-do-well. He’s a 35-year-old man named Christopher Jaros. At the time of this writing he’s jailed at the St. Louis Justice Center without bond. Presently his motive is unknown, but his wretched act fits the general cultural, moral, and social decline the West is currently suffering through.

A Circuit Attorney has so far charged Jaros with two counts of first-degree property damage, two counts of unlawful use of a weapon, and one count each of first-degree tampering, resisting arrest and institutional vandalism.

The statue by Wiktor Szostalo was dedicated to peace and the unity of the human race. It depicted a winged angel with African features, protecting three children with features denoting European, Asian, and Latin American descent. All three children were playing musical instruments; a bell, drum, and pan pipes. The arms of the angel were spread wide in a gesture of protecting the innocents. His steel wings incorporated over 100 working wind chimes.

The Angel of Harmony statue has been severely disfigured. Church authorities brought in a repairman to survey the wreckage. He reported extensive structural damage. The sculpture’s stainless steel mounts were shredded. The child playing the drum was crushed and bent in half. The angel’s wings are broken and in disarray. If the artwork cannot be restored… the wind chimes will be silent forever.

The Angel of Harmony sculpture was created in 1999. The African Black Granite base the statue sat on is inscribed with quotations from the New Testament, Pope John Paul II, and Martin Luther King Jr. The quote from MLK reads: “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”

I should mention that the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica is a Catholic cathedral that was completed in 1914, and that it was designated a basilica by Pope John Paul II in 1997. It has a dazzling collection of beautiful mosaics, the largest collection outside of Russia. A few of the mosaics were designed and installed by Tiffany Studios of New York City.

The news reports regarding the destruction of The Angel of Harmony, fail to give much detail on Wiktor Szostalo, but the artist’s story is fascinating. He was born in Pasvalys, a city in the Baltic state of Lithuania. At the time Lithuania was one of the republics that made up the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), it was called the “Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic,” or “Lithuanian SSR.”

In the post-WWII period the Soviet Union imposed communist governance over Poland. In 1952 the “Polish People’s Republic” was officially proclaimed, but the Soviet puppet regime would only last to 1989. 

In 1958 Szostalo’s family moved to Poland. Beginning in the mid-1970s Szostalo was swept up on the wings of history. He was studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, when in 1976 he began organizing lectures at the academy featuring members of KOR, otherwise known as Komitet Obrony Robotników, or Workers’ Defense Committee. This brought him to the spying eyes of the communist regime.

KOR was the first group in Poland to openly defy the communist government—but they did so legally and non-violently. They smuggled mimeograph machines into Poland and published an underground newsletter they named Komunikat (Communique). They collaborated with Western journalists in publishing open letters critical of the Stalinist regime, and they also raised funds for political prisoners.

In 1977 KOR established the Uniwersytet Latający (Flying University). These were mobile public lectures given by dissident students and scholars at apartments, homes, and workplaces. Anywhere from a dozen to 100 people would attend, and the lecturers covered topics forbidden by the communist regime, ignored by state media, and barred by the Marxist education system.

In 1978 Szostalo graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts with a degree in sculpture and painting. He became the director of the Empik art gallery in Kolobrzeg, and that city then employed him as an art instructor at the Municipal Cultural Center from 1978-1979.

It’s hilarious that in 1978, as Poland’s Flying University was taking off, The Washington Post… where Democracy Dies in Darkness, wrote a screed they likely thought was supportive of the Flying University. Except, the Post just couldn’t help writing that Poland’s tyrannical Marxist regime, had:

“… done many things to make life better for Poles in the past eight years. Poland has more open criticism of its institutions (though not the Communist Party) than other Eastern European countries, and except for political dissidents, Poles have travel freely abroad [sic].”

How wonderful! Why worry about the secret police taking your beloved family member to a prison cell to savagely beat them black and blue, when you’re allowed to “travel freely abroad.” It brings me great pleasure to know that today’s internet is the Flying University that lambasts the falseness and decrepitude of mummified institutions like the Post.

But I digress. KOR was the precursor to Solidarność (Solidarity), the Polish worker’s trade union that helped end communism in Poland. And the artist Wiktor Szostalo was a founder of the Solidarity movement!

In 1981 Szostalo was elected as the first Chairman of Solidarity in Koszalin, a city located in northwestern Poland. To eliminate all political opposition, the communist regime declared martial law in 1981 and Poland was ruled by a military junta from 1981 to 1983. After martial law was declared, Szostalo went into hiding, but was arrested in ’81 and jailed for five months.

Szostalo was released on May 1, 1982, but he was still a target for the reds. Under constant surveillance, his apartment was ransacked several times. He finally emigrated to Germany in ’82. Then he went to the United States in 1983, where he was granted political asylum. He became a US citizen in 1990… and he didn’t cross the border illegally to do it.

As previously stated, the communist regime in Poland fell in 1989. On Dec. 26, 1991 the Soviet Union totally collapsed, and was replaced by the Russian Federation, which still governs the Federal districts of Russia.

In 2015 Szostalo made the video shown above. You can listen to the marvelous sound the wind chimes on his stainless steel angel made on a windy day. Hopefully those chimes will be heard again in the future.

At the time of this writing Wiktor Szostalo maintains studios in St. Louis, Missouri, and in Kolobrzeg, Poland. Despite the repulsive act of vandalism at the St. Louis Basilica, Szostalo has otherwise received a warm welcome in the US. The artist has vitalized America with public sculptures mostly created in welded stainless steel.

There are two parts to the tragedy surrounding the The Angel of Harmony story. The first has to do with the iron-fisted repression inflicted upon Wiktor Szostalo by godless communists in Poland. The second is his emigrating to the land of the free… only to have his Angel statue destroyed by a godless miscreant.