13/08/2010 Al-Manar and NBN television channels on Friday announced they will stop airing "The Christ" TV series after it stirred a row among Lebanon's Christians.

In a joint statement they released, the two channels noted that the TV series they chose for their Ramadan holy month's schedule was aimed at highlighting the great personality of Prophet Issa bin Mariam (pbut) and his Divine message.

"The Christ TV series reflects, with full honor and glorification, his life, picture, role, pain and sacrifices," the statement said.

Al-Manar and NBN declared the decision to stop broadcasting the show "in respect of some privacies and to avoid any attempt for negative exploitation."

Both channels began showing "The Christ," an Iranian series, at the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan.

Pastor of the Maronite Catholic Church in Byblos, or 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." He said that all the events in the television series contained distortion to the Christian ideology. "This series undermines the foundations of every religion and creates strife," he went on to say.

NBN Director-General Qassem Sweid defended "The Christ," saying it does not harm Christians at all. "We made sure it was produced in accordance with the Koran," he said. "We were not told of any reason to convince us to stop the film," Sweid had said, expressing his surprise by Raii's position and that of the Catholic Information Center.


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