Click to play videoNew York: After teasing the audience with cryptic riddles, the screen adaptation of Dan Brown's best-selling novel, The Da Vinci Code hit the big screen across America on Friday.
At a multiplex in Times Square in New York, the viewers' verdict on the opening day of the movie was unanimous - all shows were sold out.
However, a few miles away, in the suburbs of Long Island, some members of the St Mary's Syro Malabar Church gathered for a weekly prayer meeting. Their verdict on the movie was equally emphatic.
"We, especially our youngsters, believe that this is sacrilegious. It's blasphemous, because the author claims that he did a lot of research on it and he's after truth," says the Editor, Malayalam Patram, Joy Lukose.
Agrees Secretary of New York based St Mary's Syro-Malabar Church, Varghese Bhavuk: "This is a combined effort against the Catholic Church because it is a mighty church and if somebody can oppose that, they will get the fame."
The Kerala based Syro-Malabar Church is one of the major Eastern Catholic churches, and has over 1,00,000 Indian followers in north America.
While many of these parishioners may not support banning The Da Vinci Code, they have no strong objections to similar demands made in India.
"The protest is that ordinary people who cannot make a proper distinction between what is fiction and what is truth, so their faith can be challenged," says priest, Syro-Malabar Church, Abraham Vettiyolil.
Others like a Tonia, a high school student say that the church should not feel threatened by the book. "But I believe that people do because there are people out there who are naive and gullible and they are able to be swayed by books and movies like this," she adds.
But for any movie, the quest for the holy grail always ends at the box office and for The Da Vinci Code, that cup may spill over.
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