Priest shot at church in France; motive unknown

LYON, France — A Greek Orthodox priest was shot Saturday while he was closing his church in the French city of Lyon, and authorities locked down part of the city to hunt for the assailant, authorities said.

The priest, a Greek citizen, was in a hospital with life-threatening injuries after being shot twice in the abdomen, a police official told The Associated Press. The attacker was alone and fired from a hunting rifle, said the official, who was not authorized to be publicly named.

Police cordoned off the largely residential neighborhood around the church and detained one person who resembles descriptions of the gunman, but was not armed at the time of his arrest, the Lyon prosecutor said in a statement. It said investigators are trying to determine his identity.

As night fell on Lyon, an Associated Press reporter saw police tape and emergency vehicles throughout the neighborhood. National police tweeted that “a serious public security incident” was under way.

The reason for the shooting was unclear. It happened two days after an Islamic extremist knife attack at a Catholic church in the French city of Nice that killed three people, and amid ongoing geopolitical tensions caricatures mocking the Muslim Prophet Muhammad published in satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

French anti-terrorist authorities were following the case but not investigating Saturday’s shooting. The interior minister activated a special emergency team to monitor the manhunt, and the Lyon prosecutor opened an investigation for attempted murder.

“No theory is favored, no theory is ruled out,” Lyon Mayor Gregory Doucet told reporters. “We don’t know at this stage the motive for this attack.”