'Da Vinci': Glittering Opening Night
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,195970,00.html
And who was the elderly looking, slightly hunched-over man with a long white beard and flowing black robe who preceded Poitier and Binoche?
He was not just someone who’d come in traditional formal wear. It was Archbishop Varnava of Cannes, who walked the red carpet like all the other celebrities.
The bishop of an exiled Russian Orthodox community came to give his blessing to “The Da Vinci Code,” and pronounced it safe for consumption.
Audience members were surprised that Varnava was so accessible, and ready to tell anyone who asked that he approved of Ron Howard’s film.
At least Varnava was granting an audience last night. When I asked “The Da Vinci Code” author Dan Brown, whose rather clunky book has been put on the screen by Howard, a simple question about the fate of one of his characters, he replied: “You know I don’t do interviews.”
*NOTE: Bp Varnanva just recently returned to the New York-based Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia synod who last week approved measures to unite with the Moscow Patriarchate church in Russia.