A New York art gallery has decided to cancel an exhibit of a chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ after protests by a US Catholic group.

The six-foot (1.8m) sculpture, entitled "My Sweet Lord", depicts a naked Jesus Christ with his arms outspread.

The sculpture, by artist Cosimo Cavallaro, was to have been displayed from Monday at Manhattan’s Lab Gallery.

The timing, over Easter Holy Week - the most important part of the Christian year - provoked an outcry.

The Roger Smith Hotel housing the Lab gallery decided to cancel the exhibition after the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights called for a boycott.

‘Strong-arming’

"We’re delighted with the outcome," said Kiera McCaffrey, spokeswoman for the League.

Ms McCaffrey had called the exhibit "an assault on Christians".

"They would never dare do something similar with a chocolate statue of the Prophet Mohammed naked with his genitals exposed during Ramadan."

The Lab gallery’s artistic director, Matt Semler, has offered his resignation, saying the decision to cancel the exhibition was a result of "strong-arming from people who haven’t seen the show, seen what we’re doing.

"They jumped to conclusions completely contrary to our intentions," he said.

Mr Semler said the timing of the exhibition - when Christians mark the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ - was coincidental.

Canadian-born Mr Cavallaro is known for using food ingredients in his art, on one occasion painting a hotel room in mozzarella cheese.

He used 200 pounds (90 kg) of chocolate to make the sculpture which, unusually, depicts Jesus without a loincloth. It showed him suspended in air with his arms spread wide, as if crucified.
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Fury in Russia

In Russia, Orthodox Christians protested outside a Moscow museum on Friday over an exhibition of provocative images, including pictures portraying Mickey Mouse as Jesus Christ and close-ups of male and female genitals.

"You are going to be tried. Are you still at large?" the angry protesters shouted at the museum’s director.

They tried to break into the exhibition hall but the director quickly locked the door, a Reuters photographer at the scene said. They also tried to attach stickers with the words "This is filth" on the building but police stopped them.

The Russian Orthodox Church denounced the exhibition, entitled "Forbidden Art 2006" as pornography and said it propagated religious hatred, Reuters reported.

The museum, named after late Soviet dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov, says it is hitting back at what it calls the rebirth of censorship under President Vladimir Putin. Many other galleries have refused to show the works.

Some exhibits were discreetly hidden behind high, white partitions with tiny holes left for visitors to peep through.

The works, spanning more than 30 years, range from icons of faithful worshipping Mickey Mouse instead of Jesus Christ to a silhouette of the Virgin Mary and son filled with black caviar.

There are several close-up photos of men and women’s genitals. A photograph entitled "Glory to Russia!" pictures a smirking Russian army general raping a male private in front of other servicemen.

Critics say the exhibition insults the religious feelings of Christian Orthodox believers.

"All this is beyond the boundaries of morality and law," Father Vsevolod Chaplin, deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s external relations department, told Reuters.

"The organisers of this exhibition should understand that to believers religious symbols mean no less than, for instance, a person’s untarnished reputation or a state symbol."

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