Turkish police started an investigation after a group of protestors threatened to remove a cross from the roof of a church in the northeastern city of Trabzon on Jan. 1, Vatan reported.

The group left a note attached to a Molotov cocktail in the grounds of the church saying they would take down the cross unless it was removed by the priest, the Istanbul-based newspaper said.

The church’s former priest Andrea Santoro was shot dead by a 16-year-old boy in February 2006. A German missionary and two Turks publishing Christian literature in central Turkey were tortured and killed in 2007, Bloomberg reported.