Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation in the world, and right now Christians are working on making it home of the world’s largest statue of Jesus as well.
According to a report, the statue is planned to be almost twice the size of the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil:
Authorities in the Papua region of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, are reportedly planning to build the world’s largest statue of Jesus Christ, which would dwarf the famous “Christ the Redeemer” statue in Brazil.
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The statue, which would be built at the top of Puncak Gunung Swajah in the city of Jayapura, would cost somewhere between $22.6 million to $37.6 million, which is a significant amount of money for Papua, where 28.5 percent of the population live below the poverty line.
Mambaya explained that the Jesus statue would be at least 165 feet tall in height, with a base of 328 feet, which is far larger than Rio De Janeiro’s “Christ the Redeemer,” which is 98 feet tall, though adding in the platform rises to 124 feet.
“We will build an elevator in the statue of Jesus Christ, like the one in Jakarta’s Monumen Nasional, in order to see the entire city of Jayapura through the eyes of Jesus,” Mambaya added.
Although a location for the proposed statue has been chosen, the provincial government is still waiting for approval from the regional parliament in order to go ahead with the building project, so the plans are not yet finalized.
If built, the monument would also be taller than the “Christ of Peace” statue in Bolivia, which stands at over 112 feet in height.
The title of the tallest Jesus statue in the world has changed hands on a few occasions over the past decades, with USA Today reporting in 2015 that the 118-foot-tall “Christ the King” in western Poland being the tallest at that time. (source)