One of the world’s largest and most controversial Pentecostal churches has been given permission to build a US$200 million replica of Solomon’s Temple in Sao Paulo.
The 10,000 capacity “mega-church,” which is the brainchild of Brazil’s Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, will also house a replica of the Ark of the Covenant and be built according to “biblical orientations.”
The Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper said planning permission was granted this week and church officials say it should be completed in four years.
BLOGGING
“We are preparing ourselves to build the temple, in the same mold as Solomon’s,” the church’s leader and founder, Bishop Edir Macedo said in a televised service, posted on his blog.
“[Solomon’s] Temple ... used tonnes of gold, pure gold ... We are not going to build a temple of gold, but we will spend tonnes of money,” he said.
Macedo said his church had signed an US$8 million contract to import stones from Israel.
“We have commissioned the stones that will come from Jerusalem, just like the ones that were used to build the temple in Israel; stones that were witnesses to the powers of God, 2,000 [years] ago,” he said.
“It is going to be beautiful — the most beautiful of all. The outside will be exactly the same as that which was built in Jerusalem,” the blog said, adding that the 55m high temple would be “twice the height of [Rio’s] Christ the Redeemer statue.”
The project was drawn up by Brazilian architect Rogerio Silva de Araujo. It includes a car park for 1,000 vehicles, TV and radio studios, and classrooms for 1,300 children.
BELIEF IN PROSPERITY
Founded in Brazil in 1977, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God claims an estimated 8 million followers in 180 countries, with a TV channel and a free newspaper, the Folha Universal, which it says has a weekly print run of 2.5 million.
The church supports so-called “prosperity theology” by which acts of faith including donations are rewarded with material wealth.
Sao Paulo’s public prosecutor last year accused 10 senior members of the church, including Macedo, of siphoning off billions of dollars of donations to buy cars and property. Macedo, who denied the charges, owns a US$45 million private jet.
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