Businessman, politician and former athlete Gagik Tsarukyan commissioned sculptor Armen Manvelian to design the 33-meter colossus to stand on the country’s Mt. Hatis, located about 30 kilometers northeast of the capital Yerevan.
But despite being three meters shorter than the current record-holding Son-of-God statue in the western Polish town of Świebodzin, which at 36 meters towers over the former 30-meter-tall champion in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro, controversially the Armenian version will stand aloft a 44-meter pedestal.
This, it is argued, will technically make it the tallest Jesus statue, even though the actual figure is shorter.
When the project was first announced in 2022, the Armenian Apostolic Church said the plan was “inappropriate and contrary to the Armenian Christian tradition.”
The statue is also waiting to receive the green light from the Armenian Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports, despite construction having already started.
But despite the setbacks, Tsarukyan boasted to journalists: “You must be looking and seeing that there is nothing like this in the world, that ours must be the best, the most beautiful and imposing in the world.”
The Świebodzin statue was completed in November of 2010. The body of Jesus is 33 meters tall, while the crown is 2 meters high. The sculpture took the previous record, held by Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which is 30 meters tall, excluding the 8-meter plinth.
