Tom Hanks upstaged by nun's protest over 'Da Vinci Code'

SISTER ACT: Sister Mary Michael, 61, with a biker fan.

GDO Report

Hanks is filming part of Dan Brown's bestselling book at Lincoln Cathedral. But Sister Mary Michael, 61, has staged a two-day protest, claiming the £53 million movie is heresy.

She also criticised the Dean of Lincoln, the Very Rev Alec Knight, for accepting a £100,000 donation from the film's producers to allow filming at the building.

The movie - expected to be next year's summer blockbuster - also stars Sir Ian McKellen and is directed by Ron Howard. Part will also be filmed at Roslin Chapel in Midlothian this September.

The plot revolves around Richard Langdon's attempts to solve a murder with the help of clues in a Leonardo Da Vinci painting, but also challenges Christian thought with the allegation that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had a child.

Part of the book is set at Westminster Abbey, but church officials refused permission for the film to be shot there.

Yesterday, almost 200 people gathered round Sister Mary as she protested, compared to just 40 hoping to see Hanks.

The Dean said of the book: "It is fiction. It has been attacked as blasphemous because it argues that Jesus's humanity included an element of sexuality.

"My view is that the book is not blasphemous. It does not denigrate God in any way."

Sister Mary, of Our Lady's Community of Peace and Mercy in Lincoln, said a storyline that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and that she bore him a child was based on agnostic heresy.

She again knelt in prayer outside the building, but said she did not care if people took her protest seriously or not.

"That doesn't matter tuppence to me," she said. "It matters to me what God thinks."

She said she had not read the book, but had read about it and understood its errors.