The well-known TikTok bishop who was viciously stabbed while preaching in Australia advised the rioters to calm down and further declared that he had already forgiven his teenage attacker on Thursday.
He even referred to the alleged terrorist as his “son”, according to New York Post.
Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel addressed the crowds that had taken to the streets of Sydney in the wake of the horrific attack that was seen on camera and that authorities have referred to as “a terrorist incident” in his first public address since the stabbing, delivered from his hospital bed.
“The Lord Jesus never taught us to fight. The Lord Jesus never taught us to retaliate,” Emmanuel said in a recorded message released by the Wakeley’s Christ The Good Shepherd Church early Thursday.
“The Lord Jesus never said to us ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ The Lord Jesus said, ‘Never return evil with evil, but to return evil with good. So my beloveds, I want you to always be calm,” the bishop urged his followers, saying they also “need to be law-abiding citizens.”
“Above all, we are Christians and we need to act like it,” he added.
Afterward, Emmanuel went on to address the 15-year-old suspected terrorist, telling the teenager that he had already forgiven him.