CHURCHES across the county have been urged to review security arrangements after a "barbaric and senseless" terrorist attack which left a French priest dead.

The National Police Chiefs' Council said the Christian community should be "alert but not alarmed" and need to report concerns to help keep churchgoers safe.

It comes after French authorities said 19-year-old Adel Kermiche slit the throat of Normandy priest Father Jacques Hamel, during an hour-long hostage taking incident on Tuesday.

The Rt Revd Colin Fletcher, the Bishop of Dorchester, said he was "saddened" by the news, adding: "I am very grateful for the messages I have received from our many friends in our Muslim communities expressing their horror at what was done in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray. We join with them and with the people of France in praying for all those whose lives have been caught up in this atrocity."

The two terrorists, who pledged allegiance to Islamic State during the attack during the church's morning mass, were said to have burst into the church by a back door with knives.

Speaking of the "tragic" terrorist attack, The Oxford Foundation''s Imam Monawar Hussain said: "As a Muslim, it grieves me deeply, that terrorist groups have appropriated the outward symbols of Islam without its inner spiritual essence and are inflicting unimaginable suffering upon their fellow human beings."

Hojjat Ramzy, director of Cowley-based Oxford Islamic Information Centre, said people of all faiths need to stand together to fight terrorism across the world.

He added: "We pray that this incident does not break the friendship and brotherhood between Muslims and Christians We cannot allow these few people who want to bring division and war between Muslims and Christians to win.