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NSW forensic police at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley, western
Sydney, on Tuesday. Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images
View image in fullscreen
NSW forensic police at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley, western
Sydney, on Tuesday. Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images
Australia news



SYDNEY CHURCH STABBING: HOW AN ALLEGED ATTACK ON A FIREBRAND PREACHER REIGNITED
TENSIONS

As rumours spread after the incident, the streets around the Christ the Good
Shepherd church in Wakeley descended into violent bedlam

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Kate Lyons and Mostafa Rachwani
Tue 16 Apr 2024 11.57 CESTLast modified on Tue 16 Apr 2024 12.29 CEST
Share



At around 7pm on Monday night, a teenager wearing a black hoodie walked up to a
bishop conducting a service in an Orthodox church in western Sydney, took out a
knife and allegedly stabbed him repeatedly.

Between that moment and 12:34am when police issued a statement saying they had
concluded their operation, the suburb of Wakeley descended into violent bedlam.



In the intervening five and a half hours, hundreds of people came to the streets
around the church and a riot ensued in which two police officers were
hospitalised with serious injuries. Paramedics were trapped inside the church
for more than three hours and some came under direct threat from the crowd. An
emergency council of religious leaders was called by the state’s premier, with
the group calling for calm and unity, and bystanders were left terrified.

Sydney church stabbing: Chris Minns considering tighter knife laws after Wakeley
and Bondi stabbings
Read more

The alleged attack on bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel came at a powder keg moment in
Sydney, still reeling from a horrific mass stabbing attack at a shopping centre
in Bondi Junction in the city’s east two days before.

The circumstances of the incident – the particular church that was targeted, the
nature of the service, the bishop in question, the spread of videos of the
attack and aftermath and the existing tensions between the Assyrian Christian
and Muslim communities in the area – were an almost perfectly combustible
combination.

1:13

'It felt like something surreal': Wakeley community on Sydney church stabbing –
video


‘LUCKY TO BE ALIVE’

The Assyrian Christ the Good Shepherd church was particularly full for a Monday
night, witnesses say. It was holding a memorial service, marking the first
anniversary of the death of a community member.

The church’s controversial but beloved bishop has a huge social media following
and the service was being livestreamed on the church’s popular YouTube channel,
which meant many people saw horrific video of the alleged attack, in real time
or shared almost immediately.

The bishop and another clergyman were injured. Both were taken to hospital and
were recovering well, though the New South Wales police commissioner, Karen Webb
said, they were “lucky to be alive”.

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   for your daily news roundup

Members of the congregation rushed the alleged attacker and pinned him to the
ground while they waited for police to arrive. The alleged attacker severed his
own finger during the attack, NSW premier Chris Minns said.

In a video shared in private WhatsApp groups and seen by Guardian Australia, the
teenager, held on the ground of the church by a group of men, calls out in
Arabic: “If he didn’t get himself involved in my religion, if he hadn’t spoken
about my prophet, I wouldn’t have come here. If he just spoke about his own
religion, I wouldn’t have come.”

Emmanuel has previously criticised Islam and the prophet Muhammad in sermons
shared widely online. Emmanuel has 154,000 followers on Instagram and more than
25m views to his videos on TikTok.

To the community, the video of the alleged attack was proof it had been
religiously targeted, something that the director general of Australia’s spy
agency Asio confirmed the next day, when he declared it to be a “terrorist
incident” that was religiously motivated.

View image in fullscreen
NSW forensic police at Christ The Good Shepherd Church. The alleged assailant’s
identity and ideology behind the attack has not yet been made public.
Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Within an hour of the alleged attack, hundreds of people had filled the streets
around the church.

“People moved to come to the church within five minutes,” said one Assyrian
community member who did not wish to be named. “The boys were nervous, they were
on edge, they heard so many rumours and were here to see what happened.”

Sydney church stabbing – what we know so far
Read more

The alleged assailant’s identity and ideology behind the attack has not yet been
made public by police.

Maria*, a member of Emmanuel’s church, acknowledged tensions between the two
communities.

“There are a lot of old wounds between these communities,” she said. “We have
always felt something would happen.”

Meanwhile, leaders of Lakemba mosque in Sydney’s west revealed they had received
threats to firebomb the mosque on Monday night. They planned to have heightened
security over the next week.


A BISHOP WITH ‘HUGE RESONANCE’

Emmanuel was known for being outspoken, posting firebrand sermons to social
media in which he decried same-sex marriage, Covid vaccine mandates, transgender
rights, as well as criticising Islam and directly appealing to Muslims to
convert to Christianity.

“He’s very outspoken, very controversial,” said Father Daniel Ghabrial,
principal of Santa Athanasius College, the University of Divinity, in Melbourne.

“He’s very far right, ultra conservative in some of those views – his views on
same-sex relationships are very outspoken, his views on Islam are very outspoken
and I understand that might have contributed to this. He’s a huge Trump
supporter, he’s anti-vaccination, [he preaches that] Covid is a conspiracy.”

View image in fullscreen
NSW forensic police photograph the Christ The Good Shepherd Church. Multiple
police were injured overnight outside the church as tensions rose. Photograph:
Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Emmanuel had parted ways with the official Assyrian orthodox church in around
2014, said Chorbishop Joseph Joseph , a priest who has known Emmanuel for about
40 years. Joseph worked closely with Emmanuel in the Ancient Church of the East,
before Emmanuel left the mother church to form his own.

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Joseph did not wish to say why Emmanuel had left the church, but confirmed it
was to do with doctrinal issues, and that there were no allegations of
wrongdoing against him.

When he knew him, Joseph said Emmanuel was “very normal, very humble, very
nice”.

“Over 10 years he changed,” Joseph said. “For me, his preaching, I don’t know
what’s happened, why he’s using this language. When he was in our church, he was
[doing] very normal Christian orthodox preaching: talk about Jesus, we don’t
mention other religions because everyone is free, especially in Australia, to
choose his faith.”

eSafety commissioner orders X and Meta to remove violent videos following Sydney
church stabbing
Read more

Joseph said there is no excuse for the attack on Emmanuel. “First, he’s a human
being,” he said. “We left our countries to come to this country, asking for
freedom, asking to respect other people, we are shocked.”

While controversial – and schismatic – Emmanuel was also hugely popular and
beloved among his community.

“People love him,” said Christian, a local Assyrian man who attends Christ the
Good Shepherd and did not wish to give his surname. “He has helped so many
people in our community and in every community. You have to understand, he has
brought young people to the church, he has addressed social issues, he is on top
of everything.”

“Sure, he is passionate and has spoken about Muslims and Islam previously, but
he is just explaining his beliefs. Nothing can justify such an attack.”

Emmanuel’s anti-Covid vaccine, anti-lockdown stance also resonated with people
in Wakeley, in light of the disproportionately harsh conditions faced by western
Sydney during the city’s 2021 Covid lockdown.

> This is a time to unite, not divide, as a community, and as a country

Prime minister Anthony Albanese

Tighter restrictions on gathering and travel were in place for suburbs in the
city’s west, which had helicopters flying overhead and armed forced on the
streets to enforce the lockdown conditions – something that was particularly
traumatic for refugee and migrant communities – while the rest of the city
enjoyed laxer restrictions.

“I’ve seen some of his clips,” said Ghabrial. “He’s found a huge resonance.”


TENSION LINGERS IN WAKELEY

NSW police said they deployed more than 100 officers to the scene in Wakely
overnight, including riot police who moved the crowd on after police cars were
smashed.

Multiple police were attacked and injured, including one hospitalised with a
twisted knee and chipped tooth after being hit with a metal object, and another
who sustained a broken jaw after being hit with a brick and a fence paling.

View image in fullscreen
Members of the media outside Christ The Good Shepherd Church in western Sydney
on Tuesday. Photograph: James Gourley

Police commissioner Webb said 20 police vehicles were damaged and 10 rendered
unusable.

According to multiple witnesses, the violence against police flared after an
incident in which a man holding an illuminated cross above his head was caught
in a scuffle, leading to the cross falling.

“As soon as the cross hit the ground, people got even angrier, feeling as though
their religion had been insulted,” Maria said. “So now, our Bishop has been
attacked and our religion insulted. People are going to react the way they’re
going to react.”

In a statement released in the early hours of Tuesday morning, Christ the Good
Shepherd church said police had taken “necessary steps to disperse groups” after
“numerous attempts by police … to peacefully disband visitors”. The church
called on the community to adopt the “spirit of humility, love and peace”.

On Tuesday, the streets of Wakeley were again quiet, but tension remained.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said: “This is a disturbing incident.
There is no place for violence in our community. We’re a peace-loving nation.
This is a time to unite, not divide, as a community, and as a country.”

* Name has been changed

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