Church helps out Muslims

A parish priest has been praised for opening up his church crypt for Muslim Friday prayers for several weeks after a prayer room had to shut due to storm damage last year.

Priest Thierry Vernet of the Saint-Christophe de Javel church in Paris’s 15th arrondissement said the crypt was available and big enough so “it just happened, discreetly and naturally”. Several parishioners helped to organise the room.

The Muslim group also hailed the reaction of Jewish people from a nearby synagogue who offered to help with the repairs.