MONDAY’S stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel of the Assyrian Church of the East in Sydney was bound to happen sooner or later. For those unfamiliar with the story, a 15-year-old Arabic speaker attacked the bishop and three others, including a priest, during a memorial service at the Church of the Good Shepherd in the western suburb of Wakeley. The assailant was quickly subdued by worshippers while the bishop, despite his wounds, put his hands on the boy and prayed.
The notion of a Christian bishop being attacked in a British Commonwealth nation even ten years ago would have been almost inconceivable, but in this post-Paris, post-Manchester world, such a scene is all too easy to anticipate. Mari Emmanuel has gained a reputation as the TikTok Bishop, with short clips from his videos gaining, in some cases, several hundred thousand views. He is known for expounding the Gospel in a ‘full-fat’ way, with a fervour and spiritual intensity which has captivated audiences worldwide. Notably, he has expressed uncompromising positions in opposition to trans ideology, covid fascism (of which Australia has been a diabolical exemplar), Islam and the like. Emmanuel has a fiery, resonant voice and preaches with a distinctly Levantine fervour. A swathe of the backslidden and unconverted, many of them young people, have been revived in the faith through his sincerity of belief.
What are the reasons for this appalling attack? The primary reason is that those who speak for the truth of Christ, preach the Gospel and proclaim his Resurrection (aptly enough in this Easter season) will always be at risk of persecution (c.f. Matt.5:11-13). We might not have noticed this in the West for much of the past two millennia, because Christianity has been our cultural and spiritual milieu, but we do well to remember that the faith was brought to Europe only through the witness of those who risked, and often surrendered, their earthly lives to make Christ known unto the ends of the earth. Christians native to areas such as Iraq whence the New South Wales prelate hails have known the scourge of Islamic aggression since the prophet received his dubious revelations in the sixth century and turned many former Christians against their erstwhile brethren with a venomous bellicosity which has yet to abate. Many Middle Eastern Christians, clergy and laity alike, are at risk of death and injury for the faith. To be a Christian in these countries is to sail close to the wind of martyrdom in a way no rainbow-draped, mitre-capped gender ideologue in an English cathedral need worry about.
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