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February 16, 2026 — 6:30pm
A religious charity run by controversial Sydney bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel has lodged plans to spend $2.2 million building a luxury home with six bedrooms, a library, a music room and an extensive underground garage.
The development is the latest property move for the tax-exempt OneJesus Limited, which has bought a string of homes for “people with special needs”.
The 55-year-old preacher came to global attention in April 2024 when he was stabbed at the pulpit of his church in Wakeley in Sydney’s west during a livestreamed sermon. Police charged a 16-year-old boy with terrorism over the knife attack, which left Emmanuel with an eye injury.
At the time, he had built a large online following, delivering sermons that contained inflammatory comments toward the LGBTQI+ community, arguments against vaccines and claims the Islamic prophet Muhammad could not be compared to Jesus.
Emmanuel founded Christ the Good Shepherd Church after splitting with the Ancient Church of the East in 2014. In the same year, a court dismissed an aggravated indecent assault charge against him, finding that although he had sexually touched an 18-year-old woman, it could not be proven beyond reasonable doubt that he was aware of her lack of consent.
The OneJesus charity relies on donations for nearly all its revenue, which jumped from less than $1 million in 2022-2023 to $9.6 million the following year.
Months before the stabbing, it had already embarked on a property buying spree, purchasing five residential homes or land parcels in western Sydney, as well as a $1.3 million house at Belmont, near Newcastle.
The existing Belmont house has been demolished and OneJesus plans to spend $2.2 million building a three-storey home, employing what the developers describe as a “high quality modern luxury design”.
The proposed development would feature six bedrooms, including a 76 sq m master bedroom, a hall, a games room/living room, a library, a powder room, a music room and a sewing room. The underground garage would house up to five cars.
Several objections lodged with Lake Macquarie City Council take issue with the development’s height and scale. They note that the property is owned by a charity linked to a church.
One objector asked council to insist the site be used “purely for residential and not for business, commercial, charitable or religious activities”. Designs show a large religious statue in the front yard.
OneJesus was founded in 2020 with the aim of “acquiring properties that are suitable for people with special needs and hiring our facilities for food [sic] humper programs”.
Financial accounts signed by Emmanuel, who serves as one of its three directors, show the value of its property holdings climbed from $2.8 million in 2022-2023 to $16.3 million the following year.
OneJesus bought homes and land worth nearly $10 million in the months before the attack, in some cases without taking out a mortgage. In June 2024, it received another three properties, transferred from Christ the Good Shepherd Church Incorporated for $1.
Despite the transfers, Christ the Good Shepherd recorded no change to the value of its property holdings that year. The two charities have managers in common but Emmanuel is only registered as a director of OneJesus.
Corporate records show OneJesus has since bought another two properties at Wakeley, for a combined $3.4 million. But it has missed the deadline to file its latest financial accounts to the charity watchdog, the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission.
In response to detailed written questions from this masthead, a lawyer acting for Emmanuel, OneJesus and Christ the Good Shepherd said the questions “have been framed in such a way as to give rise to adverse, unsubstantiated or likely defamatory imputations”.
The lawyer went on to say:“Our client is under no legal obligation to provide responses to your inquiries, nor to participate in what seems to be, in effect, a quasi-inquisitorial process advanced outside any proper forum”.
Previously the Herald revealed Emmanuel had been charged with aggravated indecent assault after sexually touching a young woman who had reached out to his church seeking guidance in 2013.
Emmanuel, who once went by the name Robert Shlimon, had taken the 18-year-old to his home at night. She reported that she froze when he began to touch her stomach and breasts, and later reached inside her pants. He allegedly told her “I can be your father, your brother, anything you like”.
Magistrate Elaine Truscott accepted the woman had not consented to the touching but dismissed the charge in 2014, unable to find beyond reasonable doubt that Emmanuel was conscious of the lack of consent.
“Despite the sordid attempts at pleasuring himself, I am left not being able to determine the true state of the defendant’s mind except to say that it was not the actions of a man with grace,” the magistrate said.
Emmanuel denied the sexual touching, saying he had held the woman when she was gripped by a seizure. He did not call an ambulance.
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