Orthodox priest shot at outside church in France, attacker at large

PARIS: An Orthodox priest was shot and injured on Saturday at a church in the French city of Lyon by an assailant who then fled, a police source said.

The priest was fired on twice at around 4 p.m. (1400 GMT) as he was closing the church, and was being treated on site for life-threatening injuries, the source said.

The incident came two days after a man shouting “Allahu Akbar!” (God is Greatest) beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a church in Nice, and two weeks after a schoolteacher in a Paris suburb was beheaded by an 18-year-old Chechen, apparently incensed by the teacher showing a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad in class.