The Lincoln Cathedral in Lincolnshire, England, will be the integral setting for the blockbuster movie, The Da Vinci Code, the controversial bestselling novel written by Dan Brown. The Cathedral will be set up to look like Westminster Abbey, in which some of the scenes are set in the novel. The perfect paramount scene when the protagonists come together at Sir Isaac Newton’s tomb will be provided by the environment and settings of this medieval Cathedral.

The role of Robert Langdon will be played by Tom Hanks, and Sophie Neveu by Audrey Tatou. The movie will be filmed at the Cathedral in August this year for five days. The Cathedral Nave, Cloisters and Chapter House will be used. According to Cathedral authorities, the services will take place as usual and there will be "minimum" disruption.

Lincoln Cathedral will get £100,000 for The Da Vinci film, which will all go towards the annual building repairs which costs £1 million.

With the novel selling over 20 million copies around the world, the film will draw interest to the City of Lincoln and the Cathedral.

The novel has been widely attacked by theologians and church leaders as it is based around the theory that Christ married Mary Magdalene and had a child. However, the decision to allow the Cathedral to be used for the movie has been defended by Rev Alec Knight, the Dean of Lincoln.

"We recognise there is a risk, but our salvation was wrought by a man who took risks," said Knight. "The Church is not often given such an opportunity on a plate to engage with people outside of the Christian faith over the facts of the Gospel. We must grasp this." He said that though he found The Da Vinci Code "exciting", the theological story line of the book was "balderdash".

"The suspension of disbelief in order to accept it is considerably greater than that required to accept the resurrection."