A divine intervention? Or just a coincidence?
A church in Colombia released a video apparently showing a man armed with a knife falling to the floor moments before he was about to stab a priest.
Video footage from the Pentecostal IPUC Bosa church in Colombia’s capital, Bogota, shows the man leaping from his seat and heading toward Pedro Pablo Martin before hitting the ground, the Mirror reports.
"There is power in the name of Jesus,” Martin says repeatedly, as members of the parish stand up and applaud. Some churchgoers raced up to the man – who appeared to be having convulsions -- to disarm him and repeat the priest’s phrase.
Church officials said the man approached the priest earlier and whispered in his ear that he was there to kill him, before being told to sit down and listen to the service, according to the Mirror.
“We have a powerful God and his name is Jesus Christ. There is power in the name of Jesus,” a church spokesman said.
But some viewers of the video, posted on YouTube with the caption “Hooded man attacks a priest but he is overcome by the power of the Holy One’s name", suspect the video may have been a staged publicity stunt.
“It’s 100 percent authentic. What happened was a display of the power of God protecting us from Evil,” Martin told a local radio station, according to the Mirror.
Martin claimed police were called but let the man go after church officials decided that they did not want to press charges.
“I’m confident he won’t try this again,” he said. “I thought about making a formal complaint but I’ve decided to leave his fate in the hands of God.”