Ahmed Benzizine a Muslim stonemason who spent 4 decades working on Saint Jean cathedral in Lyon has been immortalized as a winged gargoyle
Putting this one on for no other good reason than I found it uplifting and it bought a smile to my face – apart from the reference to the tiny extreme-right group of course.
A Muslim stonemason who spent nearly four decades helping to restore an Roman Catholic cathedral in France has been immortalized as a winged gargoyle peering out from its facade — albeit with the inscription “God is great” at his clawed feet.
This sign of inter-religious friendship is rooted in the Medieval tradition and reflects the city of Lyon’s links to its large Muslim population. But a widely publicized outcry from a tiny extreme-right group has forced the Archdiocese of Lyon into damage control.
“This has nothing to do with religion. It’s a sculptor who wants to pay homage to a construction site chief,” said the Rev. Michel Cacaud, rector of the cathedral. “That’s all.”
In France, where Islam is the country’s second religion, the government has worked to get Muslims to integrate into French culture, while at the same time confronting cases of Islamophobia, from the desecration of Muslim graves to attacks on mosques.
Ahmed Benzizine, a practicing Muslim born in Algeria, a former French colony, sees the gargoyle in his image as “a message of peace and tolerance.”
“When I started to work in churches … exactly 37 years ago, it was considered a sin that a Muslim enter a place of worship other than a mosque,” he said.
He has worked off and on since 1973 at Saint Jean Cathedral, which dominates the old city of Lyon and has been honored as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Benzizine, who arrived in France in 1970, is tickled to see his likeness on the facade of the cathedral, which dates to the 12th to 14th centuries and combines both Gothic and Roman architecture.
“It looks like me except for the ears,” said the 59-year-old Benzizine. “They’re pointed like the devil. But the sculptor told me that angels have pointed ears, too.”
But he takes his celebrity with humility.
Tags: Church Life, Religion Society
September 9th, 2010 at 10:30 am
This sign of inter-religious friendship …. “has nothing to do with religion.” said the Rev. Michel Cacaud, rector of the cathedral.
Where do they find these people?
September 9th, 2010 at 10:31 am
September 10th, 2010 at 9:00 am
Good luck to Ahmed Benzizine, anything that helps to promote unity in this religiously bigoted World of ours is a step in the right direction
September 10th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
What a splendid antidote to what I’ve just come across, the appalling ‘Belarmine Theological Forum’. I hope the ‘forum’ is a joke site, but fear it’s not. They are obsessed with Jews and Masons, perhaps we could get their conspiracy organs going with this link up with Arabs and masons? They are probably stupid enough to fall for it.
Much more positively, thank you for the story and the link that I would otherwise have missed. Even this atheist and part-time misanthrope couldn’t stop a smile invading his countenance.
September 10th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
@cnocspeireag – Part-time misanthrope, love it, had me laughing my socks off…..
September 11th, 2010 at 10:19 am
This is the propaganda of Islam, you fools.