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.
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.
‘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”.
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.
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.”
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.”
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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
