The incident took place around 20 years ago, but it was only two days ago that sculptor Zbigniew Frąckiewicz revealed the details of his conversation with Bolesławiec parish priest Edward Bober in an interview with Leszek Kosiorowski. The sculptor says that when he showed photos of his Black son-in-law from Burkina Faso, a country in West Africa, who was intended to serve as the model for the sculpture of Christ, the priest reportedly replied: “Black? No way!”
– Father Bober from Bolesławiec came to me in Szklarska Poręba. We agreed that I would create Christ for the Millennium Cross, around the year 2000 (...) In a small room here, I made a scale model that could be enlarged to those seven-metre dimensions. But before that model was created, I searched for models who could help me execute the figure. I was happy because I had a son-in-law from Burkina Faso whose body was excellent—slender, slim, perhaps even a little emaciated. I thought that if I photographed him, the priest would be delighted that I had found such a wonderful model for Christ. Meanwhile, the priest reacted this way: “What? Black? No way!” So I found a local lover of spirits, a certain Krzysiek, who was also perfectly suited and had a tired-looking body. In the end, this Krzysiek became the final model—the sculptor says Zbigniew Frąckiewicz.
In the video below, you can watch this excerpt from the conversation with journalist Leszek Kosiorowski.
Below, you can also see the sculptor’s son-in-law, Eric Alira, in the video. He was one of the participants in the Polsat reality show “Bar” and later a councillor on the Lower Silesian regional assembly.