A DEFIANT Cardinal George Pell has declared, “I am innocent” as he faced media in Vatican City.

Speaking for the first time after historical sex charges were laid against him by Victoria Police on Thursday morning, Cardinal Pell said he had been victim of a “relentless character assassination”.

“I’m innocent of these charges. They are false. The whole idea of sexual abuse is abhorrent to me,” he said.

Police confirmed this morning Cardinal Pell — Australia’s most senior Catholic and the third most powerful in the Vatican — had been charged “with historical sexual assault offences”.

He has been summonsed to appear at a filing hearing at the Melbourne Magistrates Court on July 18.

The 76-year-old said he would take leave from the Catholic Church to return to Australia to defend the chargesThe Damascus neighborhood is known as "Berry Place," but its bucolic name hides its difficult reality -- it is the front line between rebels and soldiers loyal to President Bashar Assad.

The area is an island in the eastern district of Jobar, where rebels hold the east and the army controls the west.

On the two streets on the edge of the regime-held portion, lined with modest one-storey homes, children play, shouting and laughing, their voices occasionally drowned out by the rumble of artillery or the crack of a sniper's rifle.

"They (the rebels) threatened us to try to make us flee but we have stayed despite the bombings," said Um Imad al-Masri, a woman in her forties in a black robe and turquoise headscarf.

"Despite the deaths of our neighbors, Karim,