Orthodox priest shot at church in France; attacker at large

LYON, France (AP) — French police say a Greek Orthodox priest has been shot while closing his church in the city of Lyon, and authorities are hunting for the assailant.

A police official says the priest was taken to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries after being hit in the abdomen on Saturday. The official says the priest is a Greek citizen and the attacker was alone and fired from a hunting rifle.

The reason for the attack 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 tensions over a French newspaper’s publication of caricatures mocking the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.