Who is Mar Mari Emmanuel, the Assyrian bishop attacked in Sydney?

Sydney, Australia was left reeling Monday night after the city’s second stabbing attack in just one week, when a 15-year-old with a knife attacked Assyrian Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel at the Christ the Good Shepherd Church, reportedly injuring several.

Videos circulating on social media in the aftermath of the assault appeared to show confrontations between police and crowds that had reportedly gathered outside the hospital where the assailant was being treated for injuries sustained during the attack. 

An angry crowd chants “bring him out” waiting for the suspect caught on livestream stabbing their Bishop Mar Mari inside their church. pic.twitter.com/zxRNb5tOTE

— Chriscoveries (@Chriscoveries) April 15, 2024

Though relatively unknown to the wider world, the bishop, who was born in Iraq in 1970 and immigrated with his family to Australia as a child, where he now leads a congregation, has carved out a significant following online in recent years, particularly among other Christians and those in the Assyrian community, who number some 3 million worldwide, most of whom reside in the Middle East.

Assyrians are an almost-entirely Christian minority, native to historic Mesopotamia, in what is today divided between Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. Assyrians speak Akkadian-influenced Aramaic, a variant of the language spoken by Jesus of Nazareth and the sages of the Babylonian Talmud. Assyrians have been among those most affected by recent conflicts in the region, including the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the rise and fall of ISIS in the late 2010s. 

Emmanuel is primarily a Christian preacher, presenting a traditional religious message alongside commentary about global affairs such as the war in Gaza or the Covid pandemic. 

In interviews, including one drawing more than a million views with the Assyrian, Iranian-born American podcast giant Patrick Bet-David, Emmanuel has inveighed against what he calls Satan’s engulfment of progressive and liberalizing churches, and drawn sharp contrasts between Christian doctrine and the beliefs of other faiths.

Followers of Emmanuel have posted clips on YouTube of the bishop’s sermons, with titles such as “Islam Debunked in 7 Minutes,” and “Is The Quran Wrong?,” drawing views in the hundreds of thousands. The clips feature fairly straightforward delineations of the doctrinal differences between Islam’s appraisal of Jesus, as a human prophet, and the Christian belief in Jesus as God made flesh. 

Another, three and a half minute clip titled “A Message to the Jews” similarly proselytizes to those of the other major Abrahamic faith, and has drawn an audience of about a hundred thousand. 

Emmanuel has been a vocal detractor of Covid lockdown policies

The bishop made headlines several years ago for his opposition to Australia’s Covid-era public health measures, referring to the crisis as a “plandemic,” denouncing the vaccine, and asking in a viral 2021 sermon, “Have we really lost the plot?” Emmanuel called on Australia to “reconsider these rules,” which he called “absolutely out of limits.” 

Australia had some of the harshest Covid policies in the world, attempting a “zero-COVID” strategy into late 2021, applying stringent lockdowns and contact tracing protocols and closing its borders, including to Australian citizens. 

Several others were reportedly wounded in the attack, primarily during the brawl that ensued when members of Emmanuel’s congregation worked to subdue the attacker. None of the injuries were life-threatening, authorities said, according to the Telegraph.