#BreakingNews Orthodox Priest Shot at Church in France - Fr. Nikolaos Kakavelakis is in Serious Condition



A priest was shot twice at an Orthodox church in Lyon, France, at about 4 p.m. local time Saturday, October 31, 2020. The priest is in critical condition and is being treated. The assailant is on the run, a spokesperson said.  This attack comes as the nation is on high-alert after a terror attack at the Basilica of Notre-Dame in Nice this week. 

Father Nikolaos Kakavelakis, a Greek citizen, was shot twice as he was closing the church in the city’s seventh arrondissement, a police source told FranceInfoTV. 

The attacker was on the run, police said. “He is a Mediterranean-type man measuring 1.90m, wearing a long black raincoat and a black hat. It seems he was hiding a sawn-off shotgun under his coat. He fired it in the direction of the orthodox priest and fled,” Ludovic Cassier of the police union Unité SGP Police told French radio.
The Lyon newspaper Le Progrès reported that 52-year-old Father Kakavelakis, father of 2 children, had been seriously injured in the attack. Neighbors in what was described as a quiet residential district told the paper they heard two shots, followed by screams of pain. The victim was conscious when he was taken from the Greek Orthodox church on the rue du Père Chevrier to the ambulance, the paper reported, and able to tell witnesses he did not know the man who attacked him.

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