2024 Wakeley church stabbing

On 15 April 2024, at approximately 7:15 pm local time, a knife attack took place at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. During a live-streamed sermon, the attacker walked up to the pulpit, first stabbing bishop Mari Emmanuel, resulting in permanent vision loss in Emmanuel's right eye, before stabbing a priest and injuring another churchgoer. While no one was killed, this attack was the second stabbing incident to have taken place in Sydney in two days, following the deadly mass stabbing at Bondi Junction.

The New South Wales Police Force arrested a 16-year-old male with a "long history of behaviour consistent with a mental illness or intellectual disability". They have classified the stabbing as a terrorist attack that was "religiously or ideologically" motivated as the suspect shouted a Muslim slogan during the attack, but have not released the name of the suspect. Wakeley is home to many Christians belonging to the Assyrian diaspora, including Emmanuel himself.

Background

Wakeley hosts the highest number of Assyrian Christians of any suburban neighbourhood in Australia, many of them refugees from Iraq and Syria.

Originally from Iraq, Mar Mari Emmanuel was ordained a bishop in 2011, but later broke away from the Ancient Church of the East due to theological differences and established his own independent Church.

Emmanuel criticized liberal Christian denominations, other Christian denominations, as well as other religions such as Judaism and Islam in his sermons. He was a prominent critic of lockdowns and vaccine mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia.