WASHINGTON — Clergy members declared in horror that there was no heads up and no permission asked to use St. John’s Church as the backdrop for a defining presidential photo op Monday, as President Trump defiantly held a Bible in front of the historic parish.

"We cannot have been driven off of that patio with tear gas and horses and concussion grenades, so that that man can have a photo op, in front of a church, holding a Bible," Rev. Gini Gerbasi said. "I am so [expletive] offended that he would have the nerve to do that, no one knew about this stunt."

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Gerbasi was handing medical supplies to Black Lives Matter protesters after 6 p.m., when federal law enforcement used flash grenades to clear the area.

"I was coughing with tear gas in my clergy collar, and my gray hair, and my old lady reading glasses, so that that man could stand there and hold a Bible in his hand and look Christian,” Gerbasi said. "And it would be far more Christian if he would behave according to the words in that book instead of just carrying it around with him as a prop."

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ANOTHER harrowing account from ANOTHER priest working outside St. John’s who says they were run off by tear gas, etc before Trump’s photo op.

Ends with a defiant decree: “I am now a force to be reckoned with.”