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Nun Bun stolen, owner reports

Cinnamon sacrilege on Christmas morn

By TRENT SEIBERT
Staff Writer

Something crummy happened in Nashville on Christmas morning.

The Nun Bun was stolen, its owner said — and he fears the globally renowned cinnamon roll, famous for its resemblance to Mother Teresa, has been ripped apart and thrown away.

"My gut feeling is that it's destroyed," said Bob Bernstein, the owner of Bongo Java coffee shop, where the bun had been on display for nearly 10 years. "Someone took it, destroyed it and it's the last we'll hear of it."

Someone broke into the Belmont Boulevard coffeehouse yesterday morning, apparently with the sole purpose of stealing the pious pastry. Bills and loose change in charity-donation containers near the bun's glass display case were untouched, Bernstein said.

"They went right for the bun," he said. "What the heck they are going to do with it, I can't imagine. It's sure not something anyone would eat. I hope they do eat it. It will teach them a lesson."

The Nun Bun became the object of international attention in 1996 — less than a year before Mother Teresa's death — after Bongo Java employees noticed its uncanny resemblance to the world-famous Catholic missionary.

"It may not be a miracle, but it's close enough for Nashville," singer-songwriter Sand Sheff said at the time.

The bun was controversial, too. Bernstein stopped marketing T-shirts and mugs featuring it after Mother Teresa, then 86, wrote him asking him to stop.

"She didn't mind the bun itself, but she didn't want us making money off her name or image," Bernstein wrote in his history of the Nun Bun posted on Bongo Java's Web site, www.bongojava.com.

The curious confection enjoyed some renewed publicity last year after a Florida woman made $28,000 on e-Bay by selling a partially eaten grilled cheese sandwich she said featured the image of the Virgin Mary.

Closer to home, many Tennesseans also remember accounts of "Freezer Jesus," an image of Christ that appeared on a chest freezer in Estill Springs, Tenn., in the late 1980s.

As for what anyone could do with the Nun Bun while it's "hot" — while it's stolen merchandise — that wasn't clear yesterday. There were no listings on e-Bay last night for a "nun bun."

Bernstein said he does not know the bun's worth. He tried at one point to find an insurer for the bun, "but no one would touch it."

Metro’s police report on the theft estimated the bun’s value at $25. It said the “Mother Theresa Cinnamon Bun” was the only item taken. As stolen goods, the bun was classified in property category No. 77, for “other.”

Bongo Java was closed yesterday for Christmas and was due to be closed today, but Bernstein said he will open the shop so people can come to discuss the bun, or, perhaps, provide information they might have about who stole it.

"It's weird," Bernstein said. "You laugh about it a little bit, but it's an empty feeling. It's like the end of an era."