Dan Brown's best-selling book 'The Da Vinci Code' has been banned in Lebanon after Catholic leaders called for the book to be withdrawn.
Bookstores said that security authorities had told them to take French, English and Arabic copies off their shelves.
Brown's fast-paced thriller portrays Catholic Church leaders as covering up the truth about the Holy Grail, which, according to 'The Da Vinci Code', is Mary Magdalene herself.
The Catholic Information Centre, which speaks for Lebanon's Catholic community, recommended that it be banned.
"There are paragraphs that touch the very roots of the Christian religion...They say Jesus Christ had a sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene, that they had children," the centre's president, Father Abdou Abu Kasm, told Reuters.
Brown's book has sold more than 7.5 million copies worldwide and is to be made into a film with Ron Howard directing.
Arab publishers, Beirut-based Arab Scientific Publishers, said that the Arabic version of the book had only been released about ten days ago but was already proving popular.
