Each year, Christians from across the globe flock to the Holy Land in time for Christmas prayers and ceremonies. Some in the community in Nazareth are seeking to reaffirm the historical importance of their own town by building a statue of Jesus that would tower more than 100 feet above the city.
The idea for the statue comes from Bishara Shlayan who is a Christian merchant seaman who lives in Nazareth which is the childhood home of Jesus. Nazareth has seen demographics change considerable in recent years with the Christian community becoming a minority while the Muslim population has grown to 70 percent of the 80,000 residents of the northern Israeli town. “Slowly, but surely, the Christian identity in Nazareth is beginning to disappear,” Shlayan said, noting that signs in the main square declare that “There is no power but Allah.”
The plan is for the statue of Jesus to sit atop Mount Precipice, also known as the Mount of the Leap of the Lord, the promontory where according to Luke 4:29-30, a mob attempted to drive Jesus off the hilltop only for him to pass through them without injury. Shlayan is raising money for the project but recently got what may be even more important backing; Israel’s Tourism Minister Uzi Landau gave him the green light, saying, “Start it, and we will bless it.”
The statue is inspired by the iconic Christ the Redeemer figure that dominates the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil but this one will be even taller, Shlayan said. Mount Precipice is also the starting point of the already popular Gospel Trail, a 37-mile pilgrim route that opened in 2011 winding down from the heights of Nazareth and ending at Capernaum, 680 feet below sea level on the Sea of Galilee. 58 percent of 3.5 million tourists who visited Israel last year were Christians and the statue could prove a boon to tourism.
Shlayan’s dream is not shared by the Muslim majority which has long considered his outspoken Christianity troublesome but he has worked hard to build ties with Israel’s Jewish population. Muslims and Christians have co-existed in Nazareth for many years but lately many of Nazareth’s Christians have left to live elsewhere, uneasy at the changing face and apparent new direction of their town. In 2002, following a two-year campaign by local Christians as well as the Vatican, the White House and an array of both Catholic and Protestant organizations, a controversial plan to build a new mosque alongside the Basilica of the Annunciation was eventually cancelled.