(2 of 2)
Some more liberal church leaders who viewed the movie at a New York screening came away wondering what all the fuss was about. "The film will help people understand their own commitment to Jesus," said the Rev. William Fore of the National Council of Churches. Author Kazantzakis, who died in 1957, was himself a man of deep, if idiosyncratic religious belief. But that did not prevent the Greek Orthodox Church from censuring him or the Vatican from placing his novel on its since-abandoned Index of Forbidden Books. In response, Kazantzakis sent the Vatican a wire that borrowed a line from the early Christian writer Tertullian, calling upon the judgment of a higher authority: "Ad tuum, domine, tribunal appello" ("To your tribunal, Lord, I make my appeal"). Universal's only appeal may be the tribunal of the box office.