During a Sunday evening church service in Sydney, a bishop was stabbed at the altar, and three more people were stabbed as people ran to help. Horrified worshippers witnessed the incident live and on television.
Police said there were no life-threatening wounds, and a man was arrested.
Hundreds of angry people hurried to the Orthodox Assyrian church and some clashed with riot police, with vehicles damaged. The church and local leaders pleaded for calm. “A large police response is underway and the public is urged to avoid the area,” police said.
In a suburban setting, Christ the Good Shepherd Online sermons are streamed by Wakely, and a video circulated on social media depicts a man in black approaching a clergyman recognized as the bishop and seemingly stabbing him multiple times in the head and upper torso.
Congregation members can be seen yelling and running to put an end to it. Mar Mari Emmanuel was the bishop's name given by the church.
The attack's motivation was not immediately disclosed by the authorities. After a lone attacker fatally stabbed six people and injured over a dozen more on Saturday in a Sydney retail mall, Australians were still in disbelief. There was no apparent sign of a connection between the two stabbings.
It seems that the police asked that the media not reveal the location of the man's arrest.
Ahead of Palm Sunday later this month, Christ the Good Shepherd has been getting ready.
The bishop was highlighted in national news last year; local media reported that he was occasionally perceived as a contentious figure on matters like COVID-19 regulations.
"When a man calls himself a woman, he is neither a man nor a woman, you are not a human, then you are an it," the bishop was heard stating in a sermon captured on camera in a May 2023 Australian Broadcasting Corporation campaign against the LGBTQ+ community. I shall no longer refer to you as a person now that you are an it because that is your decision, not mine.
