Christus (statue)


Christus is a 19th-century Carrara marble statue of the resurrected Jesus by Bertel Thorvaldsen. It is located in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark's Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen, for which it was commissioned as part of a larger group, which includes the apostles. It has been widely reproduced, and in the 20th century, images and replicas of the statue were adopted by the leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to emphasize the centrality of Jesus Christ in church teachings.

Original sculpture

When the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen was being rebuilt after being destroyed by fire in September 1807, during the bombardment of Copenhagen by the British navy, Thorvaldsen was commissioned to sculpt statues of Jesus and the apostles as well as some other furnishings and decorative elements. A plaster cast was supplied for the cathedral's consecration, with the finished statue replacing it in 1833. The statue is 345 centimeter high. The inscription at the base of the sculpture reads "Kommer til mig" with a reference to the Bible verse:. Jesus is depicted with his hands spread, displaying the wounds in the hands of his resurrected body.

Replicas

Replicas of the Christus figure are many. A full-size copy is located in The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland; the hospital refers to the statue as Christus Consolator. Another is located at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California in "The Court of the Christus" on Cathedral Drive. Other can be found at churches and in cemeteries including:
In 2009, a six-foot Christus replica was built out of 30,000 white Lego pieces by parishioners of a Swedish Protestant church in Västerås.

Use by the LDS Church

In the 1950s, Stephen L Richards, a church apostle, purchased a 3.4-metre replica of the Christus and presented it to church president David O. McKay; it was moved to Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1966. A second Christus replica was created to be displayed in the church's pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair. The display of the replica "was intended to help visitors understand that Latter-day Saints are Christians".
Since then, the church has created replicas of the statue and displayed them in visitors' centers near its temples in Hamilton, New Zealand; Laie, Hawaii; Los Angeles, California; Mesa, Arizona; Mexico City; Nauvoo, Illinois; Oakland, California; Palmyra, New York; London, England; Portland, Oregon; Rome, Italy; St. George, Utah; Washington, D.C.; Paris, France; São Paulo, Brazil; and Provo, Utah. Replicas are also on display at the church's visitors' centers at the Hill Cumorah, in Independence, Missouri,, and adjacent to the Rome Italy Temple, where it is accompanied by Thorvaldsen's twelve apostles from Vor Frue Kirke. The church uses the image on its webpages and in other official publications.
On April 4, 2020, church president Russell M. Nelson announced a new symbol for the church, featuring an image of the Christus as the central element, placed above the church's name.

Image gallery