A 6.5-meter-tall statue of the baby Jesus recently installed in a Catholic church in Guadalupe, Zacatecas, is believed to be the largest effigy of its kind in the world.
Measuring 6 meters, 58 centimeters tall and weighing an estimated 750-800 kilograms, the gargantuan baby Jesus was commissioned by the parish priest of the the Church of the Epiphany, Humberto Rodríguez.
“The church is eight meters from floor to roof, and I commissioned an image measuring six and a half meters. I wasn’t planning on it being the biggest baby Jesus in the world, I simply adapted it to the size of the church,” Rodríguez said.
Nevertheless, he admitted that once he began to study other representations of the child savior for inspiration, he realized that it was going to be the world’s biggest.
“I realized that the biggest baby Jesus — until now — was in Nezahualcóyotl [in Mexico state], measuring five meters tall, and that there was another in Germany at four meters,” he said.
Created by artisan Román Salvador Barrueto and his team from Chimalhuacán, México state, the statue cost 218,000 pesos (US $11,227), which came from funds donated by parishioners.
The statue was transported the 600 kilometers between Barrueto’s workshop and the church in Guadalupe with its arms removed.
Once it arrived at the church on November 13, it required 12 men to carry and place it next to the altar. It then took 20 to hoist and attach the statue to the wall.
The next step for the baby Jesus will be to find him some clothes, a task which the parishioners have already begun to tackle. Rodríguez said they were sewing nine-meter-long cloaks in which to swaddle the newly arrived statue.
On the wall next to the figure, local artist Hilario Fuentes painted images of the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph and the three wise men.
The appearance of the colossal baby Jesus did not go unnoticed on social media, where the statue was quickly given the internet’s implacable meme treatment.
“This baby Jesus from #Zacatecas deserves a thread of memes. Let’s all pitch in. I’ll begin with this EDC [Electric Daisy Carnival] Baby Jesus,” one user posted along with a photo of the statue on the extravagantly decorated stage of the popular electronic music festival.
Other memes compared the statue to Genesis drummer Phil Collins and put the baby Jesus in classic monster movies and TV shows, such as Godzilla and Power Rangers.
Source: Milenio (sp)
