Worshippers at an online church service were appalled when hackers posted pornographic and satanic images.
The Rev Fiona Smith, of Ness Bank Church, Inverness, shut down the Zoom meeting and alerted police.
"We will not be defeated by people who are trying to scare and intimidate us,” she said.
“We will continue to reach out to people who would dearly love to come to the church for services, but cannot due to the Covid restrictions.
“We will continue to give them hope with the online services and I will keep on working my socks off to hold the congregation together.”
She said the service was about to start on the Zoom video conferencing system when she became aware of a cacophony of noise, and saw “satanic pentogram” signs and a masked man.
“I took them out immediately but the music was still going on and a GIF or virtual image that was pornographic was seen.
“I immediately shut the whole service down and the matter is now in the hands of the police.
“No more than 25 people would have seen the images and the majority saw nothing.”
The hack happened as the service was about to go out to the homes of more than 100 Ness Bank Church members, plus around 160 members of Nairn Old Parish Church who had joined the Inverness congregation because their minister was on holiday.
Mrs Smith added the church had online security measures in place, and had now beefed them up.
A Church of Scotland spokesperson said: “We have extensive guidance in place around the use of videoconferencing platforms including Zoom.
“We take the safety and security of our online congregations extremely seriously and very much regret that this distressing incident has occurred.
“We are investigating the circumstances and will take all necessary protection and compliance actions.”
