The only son of the 62-year-old Brooklyn church caretaker who was gunned down at the house of worship Monday said his father was killed “in a place he loved.”

Edward James, Jr., 38, told The Post Tuesday afternoon that his father Edward James — who was blasted in the torso around 5:10 p.m. inside the Glorious Church of God on the corner of Halsey Street and Marcus Garvey Boulevard in Bedford-Stuyvesant — was “a great loving father” who was well-known in the community and “helped anybody in need, anybody.”

“It’s sad, very sad,” he said of the slaying. “In a church? In a church? How could he fight back? He was a 62-year-old man.”

“He shouldn’t have went out like that,” the victim’s son added. “That should have never happened to him. The only [thing] is he was in a place he loved. God is going to take care of him. He is going to be OK.”

James was shot in the vestibule, but a trail of blood could be seen Tuesday on the stairwell leading up to the second floor.

“I was in shock,” James, Jr. said. “I’m still in shock. I can’t process it right now. I feel empty.”

He urged the shooter — who police said is known to the victim, though it’s unclear how — to come forward. The Post is withholding the alleged shooter’s name until he is formally named by police or charged with a crime.

“Turn yourself in,” he said. “It’s gonna haunt you. Turn yourself in.”

Local clergyman Bishop Gerald Seabrook said James was an alcoholic and the church took him in.

“They transformed his life,” Seabrook said. “He became the mayor of the community, helping this church as a sexton but also helping the community in any way he could.”

“For him to be shot down, we are enraged, we are upset, we are angry,” he added. “First of all to disrespect the house of God, to come into the house of God, a place where there is serenity, a place where there is peace….and take the life of an individual is disrespectful to this church and to his family.”

Community activist Tony Herbert lamented the violent act and said action needs to be taken.

“To have someone shot in the church, it really hurts to the core,” he said. “And we have to step up and make noise, and that’s why I stand with the United Clergy Coalition….that we make the move necessary to take the leadership back in our city and show that we can stop this if we all came together.”

He also called out the mayor.

“We have seriously insane people on our street, and we gotta get ’em off these streets,” Herbert raged. “And Mayor de Blasio the blood is on your hands! Where the hell are you? Where are you?”

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a former NYPD officer, said churches are “tired seeing caskets of different sizes.”

“Cartoon characters are supposed to be on TV, not on the caskets of our children,” he said, referring to the shooting death of 1-year-old Davell Gardner Jr. in the same borough. “They’re tired of the prayers, mobilizing, they’re tired of having to get these calls.”

He added that the city must come up with a comprehensive plan.

“You must come with a comprehensive plan, and let that plan be known,” he said. “And it’s more than just overtime. The same way you deploy resources when there is a terrorist attack abroad, our community is living in terror.”

He was referring to an NYPD plan to shift funding and restore overtime that had been slashed during budget cuts to put several hundred more cops on the street through Labor Day weekend, police officials have announced.

The weekend usually draws large crowds to the borough for the West Indian Day Parade and the pre-dawn J’Ouvert celebration. Both events have been cancelled due to Covid-19 bans on large crowds but cops are still expecting the typical bump in crime the holiday weekend brings

Ron Colter, a former NYPD officer, called it “extremely sad to see what’s happening to our city,” referring to the citywide surge in gunplay.

“What type of city are we turning into that you could run into a church behind a man and kill him?” Colter said. “I want to send me deepest condolence to the family.”

“It’s sad to see that in one summer we can have a 1-year-old shot,” he added, referring to little Davell Gardner, who was killed during a July barbecue, “and now a man killed in a sanctuary place. At what point do we say enough is enough?”