First Temple replica to be built in Sao Paulo

$200 million dollar project will be constructed by Pentecostal church.

Synagogue from Suriname 311 (photo credit: Courtesy Israel Museum, Jerusalem)
Synagogue from Suriname 311
(photo credit: Courtesy Israel Museum, Jerusalem)
A Pentecostal church is planning to build a $200 million replica of the First Temple in Sao Paulo, a British newspaper reported last Wednesday.
According to the Guardian, the controversial Universal Church of the Kingdom of God will construct a church in Sao Paulo based on King Solomon’s Temple, including a replica of the Ark of the Covenant at its center.
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“We are preparing ourselves to build the temple, in the same mold as Solomon’s,” the church’s leader and founder, Bishop Edir Macedo, was quoted as saying in the report.
“[Solomon’s] Temple… used tons of gold, pure gold... We are not going to build a temple of gold, but we will spend tons of money, without a shadow of doubt.”
Macedo said his church had signed an $8m. contract to import stones from Israel.
“We have signed the contract and commissioned the stones that will come from Jerusalem, just like the ones that were used to build the temple in Israel; stones that were witnesses to the powers of God, 2,000 years ago,” he said. “It is going to be a knockout, it is going to be beautiful, beautiful, beautiful – the most beautiful of all. The outside will be exactly the same as that which was built in Jerusalem.”
The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God was founded 33 years ago and claims an estimated eight million adherents around the world.