As Jews celebrate Tisha B’av, a day of fasting in remembrance of the destruction of the First and Second Jewish Temples in ancient Jerusalem, a Brazilian megachurch in São Paulo has managed to receive building authorization to begin construction on a 10,000 seat imitation of Solomon’s Temple, according to the New York Times.
The church will cost around $200 million and take four years to complete. Bishop Edir Macedo, the founder of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, the church behind the building, says that the end construction will be 180 feet high, which is almost twice as high as the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.
The Bishop also said that the same type stones as used by Solomon had been ordered from Jerusalem and that the structure would include a sanctuary, Bible schools, television and radio studios and a 1,000 space parking lot. The Bishop also reported that a leader of the city’s Jews was fascinated by their project and felt that it might combat anti-Semitism by educating locals about Israel.
The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God has been in the news before. In 1998, Alan Riding reported for The Times (U.K.) that the São Paulo police department was looking into charges that the church “pretends to cure people by expelling the Devil from their bodies, using grotesque and humiliating gestures reminiscent of the barbaric sects of the Middle Ages.”