It is big, it is ugly, it is one and a half tons heavy. It looks over the trucks working for Bechtel, towards the Transylvania highway. It gives you the creeps, in case you suddenly take a turn and come face to face with it. IT is the Highway Jesus, a statue that claims to have drawn its inspiration from the Jesus statue in Rio.
The villagers dedicated the statue and now pray to it for protection from the heavy trucks. In the evening, they light up the forehead of the statue, "to glow nicely". The statue is made with reinforced concrete. It was poured in molds by a local church employee and, by his sayings, it all took just two hours and a half. He wanted to make a copy of the giant statue of Jesus in Rio de Janeiro. It took 12 men to carry it up the hill.
The Highway Jesus risen both aesthetic and religious controversies.
The entire area is known for the fact that religious symbols appear every step of the way. All houses have crosses at their gates. "Crucifixions", as they call it.
A painter in the area explains that it is not the beauty or the manner of painting an icon that counts, but the faith the one who prays has in his soul. "You may pray at a piece of newspaper or at the most beautiful painting. It is up to the eye of the beholder to see beyond the paint, beyond the plaster", Ovidiu Avram says. It is big, it is ugly, it is one and a half tons heavy. It looks over the trucks working for Bechtel, towards the Transylvania highway. It gives you the creeps, in case you suddenly take a turn and come face to face with it. IT is the Highway Jesus, a statue that claims to have drawn its inspiration from the Jesus statue in Rio.
The villagers dedicated the statue and now pray to it for protection from the heavy trucks. In the evening, they light up the forehead of the statue, "to glow nicely". The statue is m
