Well, I can't see a single logical reason why anyone would head towards a church of all things in a crisis. It made sense in the medieval ages when abbeys, cloisters, monasteries and other facilities doubled as fortresses and contained gardens inside to cultivate food during a siege. Modern churches are woefully inadequate to providing proper sanctuary. Police can bust in and take you, regardless of any claims to sanctuary. They have no food reserves of any kind, nor any sort of defensive fortifications.

I guess some concepts, like the idea of churches being places of refuge, still persist despite being woefully inadequate to the task.