From CNN:
A bishop was among several people reportedly stabbed at a church service in Sydney, Australia on Monday – just two days after the city was rocked by a mass stabbing in a busy shopping mall.
Video of the incident appears to show a clergyman being attacked during a ceremony at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley, western Sydney.
Several others immediately attempted to intervene while screams could be heard in the church.
A man was arrested after officers were called to the incident and has been removed from the church, New South Wales police said.
Police said none of those hurt received life-threatening injuries, and that they were treated by paramedics at the scene before being taken to the hospital.
“Police continue to work on restoring order,” the force said in a statement. “A large police response is underway and the public is urged to avoid the area.”
A local official identified the clergyman stabbed as Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel.
While he was bleeding, “he put his hand on the man that stabbed him and said something like, ‘May the Lord Jesus Christ Save you,’” Charbel Saliba, Deputy Mayor of Fairfield City, a suburb of western Sydney, told CNN.
Emmanuel is a prominent leader of an ultra-conservative sect of the Assyrian Orthodox. He became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic for being critical of lockdowns and vaccines.
Often livestreaming his services on YouTube and social media where he has hundreds of thousands of followers, he preached fire and brimstone and drew in radical Christians for his anti-LGBTQ sermons.
Other viral livestreams of his feature hardline views about American and Russian politics, as well as claiming Satan founded the United Nations.
