Austrian Christians, determined to show that no religious group has a monopoly when it comes to irrational threats, have whipped themselves into a frenzy of outrage over a black and white etching by Alfred Hrdlicka which was displayed at an Archdiocese of Vienna museum.

Hrdlicka’s rendition of the Last Supper shows Jesus and his disciples engaged in sex acts on the table where the Bible says they shared a final meal before Christ’s crucifixion.

The exhibition’s curator, Michael Kaufmann, said today: “I’ve even seen web postings from extremists who have threatened to come to Vienna and blow up its museums with Molotov cocktails.”

The 80-year-old artist drew the picture in 1984 as a tribute to Pier Paolo Pasolini whose treatment of religious themes in his films put him at odds with the Catholic church.

According to Bernhard Boehler, the director of the museum: “The protests came primarily out of fundamentalist Christian circles in the USA and Germany. There is a long dialogue between art and the church. For the church, the quality is decisive - not the piety of the artwork.”

Not any more, it appears. Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the Archbishop of Vienna, ordered the offending artwork to be removed. It has now been moved to the private Ernst Hilger gallery.

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