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

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.