A group of young men stormed the Montfavet church in Avignon on Saturday evening, shouting, “Allahu Akbar” and threatening to burn the church down — an act of intimidation that forced police to guard the building during Sunday’s morning Mass.

The incident occurred shortly after 7:30 p.m., just as the evening Mass had ended. According to Fr. Laurent Milan, the parish priest, the confrontation began when a teenage boy arrived at the church claiming he wanted to convert. Soon after, around 10 others followed, some stating they were Muslims and asking to come inside.

According to reports by La Provence, the group quickly turned aggressive. “One of them began running around. They gathered around the priest and started hurling insults. It was chaos. We struggled to get them out,” one parishioner told the French news outlet.

According to Fr. Milan, the young men hurled explicit insults targeting Christianity and made repeated threats. “They didn’t insult me directly, but they shouted things like, ‘Jesus, we’re f***ing you,'” he said. “They were shouting ‘Allahu Akbar,’ and told us several times, ‘We’re going to come back and burn your church.'”