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Explore real-time news, visuallyIn midst of Syrian war, giant Jesus statue is raised 
Samir El-Gadban/AP - Workers prepare to install a statue of Jesus on Mount Sednaya, Syria, on Oct. 14.
By Diaa Hadid,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 40 feet tall and stands on a base that brings its height to 105 feet, organizers of the project estimate.
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Giant Jesus statue is raised in midst of Syrian war
Diaa Hadid Christians and other minorities are all targets in the conflict, and the new statue’s safety is far from guaranteed.
That the statue made it to Syria and went up without incident
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 al-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 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.
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 project site — halted their fire while organizers set up the statue.
Rebels and government forces occasionally agree to cease-fires to allow the movement of goods, but they typically do not admit to them.
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 Ghadban directs.
Ghadban said most of the financing came from private donors, but he did not give further details.
Russians have been a driving force behind the project — not surprising given that the Kremlin is Assad’s chief ally and that the Orthodox churches in Russia and Syria have close ties. Ghadban, who spoke from Moscow, is Syrian Russian and lives in both countries.
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.
“It was a miracle,” Ghadban said. “Nobody who participated in this expected this to succeed.”
— Associated Press
AP writers Raphael Satter in London and Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.
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