During a press conference on Friday, Lebanon Information Minister Tarek Mitri announced that NBN and Al-Manar television stations decided to cancel an Iranian-produced television series about Jesus after a “dialogue with officials from the stations that started yesterday and finished in good spirits.”
On Friday the both stations announced that will stop airing the series due to complaints from Christian leaders and the public.
Mitri said various solutions had been proposed, but that the “most suitable solution was stopping the broadcast, and we reached an agreement today to that effect.” He added that the problem had been resolved without involving politics or legal recourse.
Pastor of the Maronite Catholic Church in Byblos(Jbeil), Bishop Beshara Raii has said the film series is based on the Gospel of Barnabas, a Gospel “not recognized at all by our church.”
Raii said that all the events in the television series contained “distortion to the Christian ideology.”
“It also denies the crucifixion of Jesus and shows Judas as being crucified instead of the Christ,” Raii complained.
He went on saying that the TV series claims that there is no resurrection of Christ.
“This is considered as the biggest insult to the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church,” Raii argued.
“This series undermines the foundations of every religion and creates strife,” he thought.
Raii said his Church had contacted both NBN and Manar television channels and pleaded with them to halt broadcast of the series.
“The Christ,” nevertheless, was still being aired.
“While we don’t burn tires,” Raii stressed, “we won’t keep silent.”
Al Manar is the mouthpiece of Hezbollah, while NBN is the mouthpiece of Amal Movement . Both Shiite parties are backed by Iran
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