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  • In midst of Syrian war, giant Jesus statue arises

    The Associated Press
    November 2, 2013 Saturday 02:14 PM GMT

    In midst of Syrian war, giant Jesus statue arises

    By DIAA HADID, Associated Press
    BEIRUT

    In the midst of a conflict rife with sectarianism, a giant bronze
    statue of Jesus has gone up on a Syrian mountain, apparently under
    cover of a truce among three factions in the country's civil war.

    Jesus stands, arms outstretched, on the Cherubim mountain, overlooking
    a route pilgrims took from Constantinople to Jerusalem in ancient
    times. The statue is 12.3 meters (40 feet) tall and stands on a base
    that brings its height to 32 meters (105 feet), organizers of the
    project estimate.

    That the statue made it to Syria and went up without incident on Oct.
    14 is remarkable. The project took eight years and was set back by the
    civil war that followed the March 2011 uprising against President
    Bashar Assad.

    Christians and other minorities are all targets in the conflict, and
    the statue's safety is by no means guaranteed. It stands among
    villages where some fighters, linked to al-Qaida, have little sympathy
    for Christians.

    So why put up a giant statue of Christ in the midst of such setbacks
    and so much danger?

    Because "Jesus would have done it," organizer Samir al-Ghadban quoted
    a Christian church leader as telling him.

    The backers' success in overcoming the obstacles shows the complexity
    of civil war, where sometimes despite the atrocities the warring
    parties can reach short-term truces.

    Al-Ghadban said that the main armed groups in the area Syrian
    government forces, rebels and the local militias of Sednaya, the
    Christian town near the statue site halted fire while organizers set
    up the statue, without providing further details.

    Rebels and government forces occasionally agree to cease-fires to
    allow the movement of goods. They typically do not admit to having
    truces because that would tacitly acknowledge their enemies.

    It took three days to raise the statue. Photos provided by organizers
    show it being hauled in two pieces by farm tractors, then lifted into
    place by a crane. Smaller statues of Adam and Eve stand nearby.

    The project, called "I Have Come to Save the World," is run by the
    London-based St. Paul and St. George Foundation, which Al-Ghadban
    directs. It was previously named the Gavrilov Foundation, after a
    Russian businessman, Yuri Gavrilov.

    Documents filed with Britain's Charity Commission describe it as
    supporting "deserving projects in the field of science and animal
    welfare" in England and Russia, but the commission's accounts show it
    spent less than 250 pounds ($400) in the last four years.

    Al-Ghadban said most of the financing came from private donors, but
    did not supply further details.

    Russians have been a driving force behind the project not surprising
    given that the Kremlin is embattled Assad's chief ally, and the
    Orthodox churches in Russia and Syria have close ties. Al-Ghadban, who
    spoke to The Associated Press from Moscow, is Syrian-Russian and lives
    in both countries.

    Al-Ghadban said he began the project in 2005, hoping the statue would
    be an inspiration for Syria's Christians. He said he was inspired by
    Rio de Janeiro's towering Christ the Redeemer statue.

    He commissioned an Armenian sculptor, but progress was slow. A series
    of his backers died, including Valentin Varennikov, a general who
    participated in the 1991 coup attempt against then President Mikhail
    Gorbachev. He later sought President Vladimir Putin's backing for the
    statue project.

    Varennikov died in 2009.

    Another backer, Patriarch Ignatius IV, the Lebanon-based head of the
    Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the East, died in 2012. He
    had donated the land for the statue, according to church official
    Bishop Ghattas Hazim.

    By 2012, the statue was ready, but Syria was aflame, causing the
    project's biggest delay, al-Ghadban said.

    Majority Sunni Muslims dominate the revolt, and jihadists make up some
    of the strongest fighting groups. Other Muslim groups along with the
    10-percent Christian minority have stood largely with Assad's
    government, or remained neutral, sometimes arming themselves to keep
    hard-line rebels out of their communities.

    Churches have been vandalized, priests abducted. Last month the
    extremists overran Maaloula, a Christian-majority town so old that
    some of its people still speak a language from Jesus' time.

    On Tuesday a militant Muslim cleric, Sheik Omar al-Gharba, posted a
    YouTube video of himself smashing a blue-and-white statue of the
    Virgin Mary.

    Al-Ghadban and the project's most important backer, Gavrilov, weighed
    canceling it.

    They consulted Syria's Greek Orthodox Patriarch John Yaziji. It was he
    who told them "Jesus would have done it."

    They began shipping the statue from Armenia to Lebanon. In August,
    while it was en route, Gavrilov, 49, suffered a fatal heart attack,
    al-Ghadban said.

    Eventually the statue reached Syria.

    "It was a miracle," al-Ghadban said. "Nobody who participated in this
    expected this to succeed."

    Associated Press writers Raphael Satter in London and Albert Aji in
    Damascus contributed to this report.

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