Paris Olympics 2024: Organisers Clarifies Over Mocking Jesus Christ During Opening Ceremony
The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics 2024 drew a backlash from the Christian and Muslim religious communities over a depiction of one of the events of Jesus Christ’s life before his crucifixion. The inauguration ceremony was criticized for showcasing a scene from Leonardo da Vinci’s painting The Last Supper.
In the tableau that was criticized by the conservatives and religious groups broadcasted, a scantily clad man painted in blue emerged at the center of the table surrounded by fruits and sang among dancing drag queens. The scene included a woman wearing a silver, halo-like crown at the center of a long table surrounded by drag queens. As the blue man began singing, the drag queens broke out into dance behind him.
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The organizing committee issued a clarification and said that the scene depicted during the opening ceremony had nothing to do with Jesus who is revered both in Christianity and Islam. Instead, the performance by the people dressed colorfully including drag queens was a depiction of Greek gods enjoying a party and not the Jesus Christ and his followers depicted in The Last Supper.
The intention behind the depiction was never to disrespect any religious groups said the game’s communication director.
The Egypt’s largest Christian denomination leader, the Coptic church condemned the opening ceremony as a blasphemy. Egypt’s Al-Azhar, the world’s top Sunni Muslim Authority also condemned the ceremony as insulting and said insult to Jesus Christ or any other prophets is extremism and reckless barbarism.
Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khemeni also condemned the insult to Jesus Christ in the 2024 Olympics.
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Broadcasts of the ceremony on TV were suspended or censored in Algeria, Morocco and Turkey. A Turkish MP denounced the ceremony as “LGBT, pedophile and satanic propaganda”.
Furthermore, a controversy also emerged during the opening ceremony when the Algerian team threw flowers in the Seine to commemorate the indepdence struggle and massacre occured in 1961.
