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Police were called to Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley, near Fairfield, at 7pm after reports of a stabbing.
Four people were injured with non-life-threatening injuries, including the Bishop.
A 16-year-old teenager was arrested at the scene and taken to an undisclosed location by Police.
The NSW Government confirmed the incident was being treated as a terror attack on Tuesday morning.
Who is Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel?
The bishop immigrated from Iraq to Fairfield in Sydney, Australia as a child in the 1970s.
He was ordained as a priest in 2009 and became the bishop of Christ the Good Sheperd Chruch in Wakeley, in 2011.
Emmanuel is extremely well-known in his sect of the Assyrian Church, which is considered a conservative branch of Orthodoxy.
The Bishop runs youth groups and international religious talks, as well as being heavily involved in the Assyrian community.
The bishop has gained a mass following on social media, including 158,000 followers on Instagram and 203k subscribers on YouTube, where the church posts videos and live stream his sermons.
He gained media attention during the COVID-19 pandemic after sharing controversial views on the vaccine, as well as the state’s lockdown laws.
In a personal message on the Church’s website, Emmanual says his mission is to tell the truth.
“In our time and age, we believe the most important and fundamental insight is coming into the truth,” it reads.
“The world bombards the human race with so much information, quite often we lose our orientation in discerning the lie from the truth.”
The bishop is in a stable condition, the church announced in a statement this morning.
It’s understood the religious leader had been receiving threats for two weeks leading up to the attack.
What is Assyrian Orthodox?
Assyrian Orthodox is a denomination of Christianity, however, it has a long and complicated history.
It can be traced back to Mid-Second Century Mesopotamia, known today as Iraq, Syria and southern Turkey.
Its followers have faced persecution a number of times, most notably in the 7th and 14th centuries.
The church was nearly made extinct again by the Turkish Government during the First World War.
In 2024, the Assyrian church is a minority community within the Christian church.
Other Orthodox denominations include Eastern Orothdox, Copic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox and Eritrean Orthodox.
