A 15-year-old boy has been arrested in connection to a stabbing during a service at a church that left four people injured.
Police officers were forced to keep the teen from an angry mob that wanted to take matters into their own hands.
It was the second significant stabbing incident in three days, following a knife attack that murdered six people at a Bondi Beach mall.
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Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel of the Assyrian Christ The Good Shepherd Church was speaking at an evening service on Monday when a guy approached him and lunged with a knife, according to video footage from a livestream on the church's social media website.
Horrified members of the congregation scream as the man stabs the priest several times in the head and chest, the videos show. A separate eyewitness video, verified by Reuters and taken in the aftermath of the incident, shows the man being pinned to the ground by several others, his face obscured. A voice in Arabic says: "If they didn’t insult my prophet, I wouldn’t have come here. If he didn’t involve himself in my religion, I would not have come here."
Authorities have revealed no reason for the attack or identified the perpetrator.
Two eyewitnesses told Reuters that the mob hurled rocks at police. More than 100 police officers were eventually dispatched to cope with the commotion, and two were transported to the hospital with injuries, according to authorities. Reuters witnessed two guys being pepper sprayed.
The perpetrator was transported to an undisclosed location.
The New South Wales ambulance service said that four people sustained injuries in the attack.
The incident, which came only days after a mass stabbing in Bondi, brought criticism from the city's religious communities as well as demands from officials for calm.
Police said they would check mosques and other religious sites in south-western Sydney in the early hours of Tuesday.
