Muslim mason immortalized at French cathedral

By Elaine Ganley, Associated Press Writer

Paris (AP) -- A Muslim stone mason who spent nearly four decades helping to restore an ancient Roman Catholic cathedral has been immortalized, as a winged gargoyle peering from the facade of the edifice with the inscription "God is Great" at his clawed feet.

This sign of friendship that spans religions is rooted in the Medieval tradition and the city of Lyon's links to its large Muslim population. But a widely publicized outcry from a tiny extreme-right group has forced the diocese into damage control.

"This has nothing to do with religion. It's a sculptor who wants to pay homage to a construction site chief," said Michel Cacaud, rector of the cathedral. "That's all."

France, where Islam is the second religion, has worked to get Muslims to integrate into the French culture, while at the same time confronting cases of Islamophobia, from desecration of Muslim graves to attacks on mosques.

Ahmed Benzizine, a practicing Muslim born in Algeria, a former French colony, sees the gargoyle in his image as "a message of peace and tolerance."

"When I started to work in churches ... exactly 37 years ago, it was considered a sin that a Muslim enter a place of worship other than a mosque," he said.

He has worked off and on since 1973 at Saint Jean Cathedral, which dominates the old city of Lyon and has been honored as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Benzizine, who arrived in France in 1970, is tickled to see his likeness on the facade of the cathedral, which dates to the 12th to 14th centuries and combines both Gothic and Roman architecture.

"It looks like me except for the ears," said the 59-year-old Benzizine. "They're pointed like the devil. But the sculptor told me that angels have pointed ears, too."

But he takes his celebrity with humility.

"I don't like to stare at it as people then say, 'He's the gargoyle,"' Benzizine said in a telephone interview. But he said he liked the idea that he'll still be around, in stone, when his friends are long gone. "I tell my buddies ... I'm present in this stone so I can tell them if the neighborhood has changed," he said, laughing.

For Emmanuel Fourchet, the sculptor who immortalized Benzizine in stone, "it was an occasion to pay tribute."

"I've known him for more than 20 years. He was already working in churches when I wasn't even a stone mason apprentice. This is an acknowledgment."

Gargoyles, usually grotesque creatures with open mouths originally used as water spouts, dot the facades of the cathedrals of France and elsewhere. The sculptures, often part animal, were popular in Medieval times.

Experts say that, beyond their plumbing function, they may have been used to scare off evil. What is clear is that Benzizine is not the first artisan to find his likeness on a cathedral, in his case with wings and clawed, bird-like feet.

"It's a long tradition, to represent the artisans who worked on a site ... either for humor, derision or to pay them homage," said Cacaud, who "of course" gave his OK to adding Benzizine to the cathedral's collection of gargoyles.

The Benzizine gargoyle has been in place for some six months, but until recently, few people noticed. However, a recent campaign by a small extreme-right group denouncing the likeness of a Muslim on a Catholic institution and the inscription proclaiming "God is Great" in French and Arabic - Dieu est grand, Allahu Akbar - has put everyone on the defensive, even Benzizine.

"Just the fact that it's written in Arabic, it shocked a minority," because it evokes Islam, he said. But, Benzizine insisted, "God IS great. It's not talking about Mohammed," the Muslim prophet and founder of the Islamic faith. He noted that he works on all historic monuments, be they cathedrals, mosques or synagogues.

The extreme-right group, Identity Youth of Lyon, said on its website that the "clearly symbolic" inscription is "the manifestation of a conquering Islam."

"How many Ave Marias are inscribed on how many mosques?" it asked.

The diocese of Lyon is quick to point out that the small group stands alone in criticizing the gargoyle; the Rev. Cacaud said parishioners have not complained.

For the diocese, the gargoyle named Ahmed is actually the fruit of two traditions: honoring artisans in a cathedral's stone work, and embodying the Christian-Islamic dialogue that is part of Lyon's recent religious history.

In France's third-largest city, a delegate of the archdiocese is devoted to relations with Islam. In 2007 Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, archbishop of Lyon, and local Muslim leader Azzedine Gaci led a pilgrimage to Tibhirine, an Algerian village where seven Trappist monks were executed in 1996 by radical Islamic insurgents.

"There is no religion that doesn't say 'God is great,' be one Christian, Jewish, Muslim," said Cacaud.

But the gargoyle, he insisted, is a way to honor a faithful worker and "to say simply and solely 'thank you."'

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AP Television News producer Anthony Laurent in Lyon contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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