Austrians are locked in a fierce debate over an art exhibit at a religious museum that includes an etching of Jesus Christ and his disciples having an orgy.

The exhibition Religion, Flesh and Power, with about 50 works by Alfred Hrdlicka at Vienna's Cathedral Museum, was meant to show the church was open to new ideas, even ones critical toward it.

A visitor looks at works by Austrian artist Alfred Hrdlicka on Friday at the diocesan museum in Vienna. A controversial homoerotic work has been removed from the exhibit.
(Lilli Strauss/Associated Press)

"Their intention was to show that the church is wide open," exhibition curator Michael Kaufmann said. "Alfred [Hrdlicka] is more Christian than many people who go to church each Sunday."

The 80-year-old Austrian artist is known for his daring paintings, and several have homoerotic themes. An atheist, he is nevertheless fascinated with the stories of the Bible.

"In Austria, no special reason is required for a church museum to dedicate an exhibition to the most important living sculptor," museum director Bernhard Boehler said.

Though Austria is a largely Catholic country, most people have a liberal attitude toward such art, he added. 

But Hrdlicka's rendition of the Last Supper, a large, black and white etching that shows Jesus and his disciples engaging in sex acts on the table where they shared their final meal before the crucifixion, has been too much for many Austrians.

Protests have been pouring into the Austrian media, with many calling the work blasphemous and an insult to Christianity.

Some questioned why a museum owned by the Catholic Archdiocese of Vienna would display such an image and asked why the museum itself should continue to exist.

Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the top Catholic churchman Austria, ordered the offending artwork removed, though he praised Hrdlicka as an artist in a statement issued earlier this week.

"The exhibition does not mean that the Cathedral Museum identifies with all of Hrdlicka's works," Schoenborn said.

"Of course, I would not have agreed to the presentation of works which are blasphemous or pornographic. I therefore expressly regret that a picture of this kind — without my knowledge — was included in the exhibition."

But the debate continued, with the Austrian media comparing it to the dispute over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons.

Boehler said most of the critics, many on religious blogs in the U.S. and Germany, don't know Hrdlicka's work.

"The protests mainly came from Christian fundamentalist circles in the United States and eventually spilled over into Germany," he says. "So it came from people who neither had the knowledge of the seriousness of Alfred Hrdlicka's work nor had seen the exhibition."

But he admitted the museum had underestimated sensitivity over the exhibit.

The etching has been moved to the private Ernst Hilger Gallery, a short stroll from the Cathedral Museum. The rest of Hrdlicka's works will remain on display through May 10.

With files from the Associated Press