Midnight Mass brawl

[YMix]

A priest today described how he feared parishioners' lives were in danger when a fight broke out in his church during midnight mass on Christmas Eve.

Monsignor Vincent Harvey said heavy chairs were thrown down an aisle at St Edmund's Church, Southampton, during the fight in the middle of the service on Saturday night.

Police patrol cars and an ambulance raced to the historic church on The Avenue, Southampton, as other members of the congregation tried to break up the fight.

The priest managed to continue the mass to his shocked but uninjured congregation after police arrived to arrest those involved.

‘You often expect some drunken behaviour at the Christmas Midnight Mass but this was actually quite shocking,’ said Father Vincent Harvey.

‘But then about three or four minutes later, there were scuffles going on. Then it was obvious it was more than just a scuffle, there was actually a fight going on.’

‘I had to halt the Mass because the congregation were in considerable danger as chairs were being hurled down the aisle. Some of them were made of steel and could easily have injured people in the pews.'

He continued: ‘The person involved started throwing fairly heavy chairs down a side aisle, endangering people's lives.

‘People were frightened that it was happening. If they'd hit anybody they could have been badly injured.’

‘A woman was involved and several men. The stewards managed to eject one man out of the church door but he came back in and then chairs started flying down the aisles.

Father Vincent said the people involved in the fight were not regular churchgoers and he believed they had entered the church part way through the service.

He added that the disagreement was between the people involved and not targeted at the congregation.

'Many didn't want me to get involved because they said I might get injured but I had to try to calm it down and went to the back of the church,' the priest said.

‘Some of the congregation were worried about the statues in the church getting smashed but I told them not to be concerned about those, just to make sure they didn't get injured themselves.'

A spokesman for Hampshire Police said that the 999 call for assistance at the church came shortly after 12.30am.

‘Officers who arrived quickly broke up the factions and two people were arrested for alleged public order offences,' the spokesman said.

‘They were taken to the cells at Southampton Central police station where they were held overnight. They will be interviewed later about the incident.

‘At this stage we do not know whether the people involved had been drinking before going to midnight mass although I am sure that will form part of our inquiries,’ said the spokesman.

A spokesman for the South Central Ambulance Service said that paramedics were called to the church following a 999 call report assaults and a fight taking place.

'However when our crews arrived the police were already there and nobody needed hospital treatment,’ said the spokesman.

He said most of the 350 people in the church stayed to hear the rest of the mass, although some, who were ‘shaken’ by the incident, went home.

The priest said: ‘I just asked people for a bit of silence so we could recollect ourselves and to pray for the person involved.

‘My sermon had been about how we are broken people, fragile people, and I said he is one of the very people I'm talking about.’

Father Vincent said the fight ‘dampened’ the Christmas celebrations but that most people were in a positive mood when they left.

St Edmunds is one of the biggest Catholic churches in Hampshire and on the main route in and out of Southampton.

[YMix]

This, on the other hand, is an annual event.

Priests brawl in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity

Scuffles have broken out between rival groups of Greek Orthodox and Armenian clerics in a turf war at Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity.

Bemused tourists looked on as about 100 priests fought with brooms while cleaning the church in preparation for Orthodox Christmas, on 7 January.

Palestinian police armed with batons and shields broke up the clashes.

Groups of priests have clashed before in the church, built on the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born.

"It was a trivial problem that... occurs every year," Bethlehem police Lt-Col Khaled al-Tamimi told Reuters.

"No one was arrested because all those involved were men of God," he said.

Nobody was seriously injured in the scuffles, according to the police.

Previous clashes between the denominations which share the administration of the church have been sparked by perceived encroachments on one group's territory by another.

The 1,700-year-old church, one of the holiest sites in Christianity, is in a bad state of repair, largely because the priests cannot agree on who should pay for its upkeep.

Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the site where many Christians believe Jesus was crucified, has also seen similar incidents.

[Enki]

Ha, well...even in the time of Christ the people of Bethlehem were kind of pricks.

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

This has hit the local news and by some accounts, even more blasphemous.......

"There were drinks thrown on the floor and chairs being thrown everywhere," witness Tess Dessalgne told television station KARE. She reported that "everyone started running toward the fight," while the video showed others leaving the area.

Another woman told CNN affiliate WCCO that she "didn't really know what was going on" when stores unexpectedly began closing down but soon saw police "pushing us all away from Nordstrom (department store)."