A video showing a crowd of devotees gathered inside a grand hall, singing bhajans and participating in an inauguration ceremony, is being widely circulated on social media, suggesting that a European Christian church has recently been turned into a temple.
What's the claim?: The viral post claims that the video shows a European church that has been converted into a Narasimha temple.
What's the truth?: The claim is false.
The visuals are from Elmira, New York, and show the inauguration of the Paranitya Narasimha Temple by the Bhakti Marga organisation.
The building was previously Our Lady of Lourdes, a Catholic church that was closed in 2021 by the parish because it required repairs far beyond their budget and was sold to Bhakti Marga.
What we found: We ran the keyframes from the clip on Google reverse image search.
It led us to a YouTube video with matching interiors, where the caption clearly identifies the location as Elmira.
We ran keyword search for Narasimha temple Elmira which led us to a reel posted by Bhakti Marga America and Paramahamsa Sri Swami Vishwananda on 1 September 2023.
The decorations, lighting, crowd composition and angle of the shots all match the viral clip.
We also found Bhakti Marga’s official Facebook page, which confirmed that the Paranitya Narasimha Temple, established inside a former Catholic church, was inaugurated in 2023. This was mentioned in their one-year anniversary post marking the establishment of the temple.
It mentioned that "an abandoned Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in upstate New York was chosen to be the home of the Paranitya Narasimha deity," in January 2022.
The post further notes that the temple of inaugurated on 3 September 2023.
What happened to the church?: We found a news report by the Star-Gazette that provides details about the church’s closure and how the Hindu temple came to be established in its place.
The article states that the building was previously Our Lady of Lourdes Church in West Elmira, but it was officially closed in November 2021 along with another parish building because it required extensive repairs that exceeded the parish’s budget.
After being relegated, the church was sold to Bhakti Marga for $240,000 in January 2022, who later converted it into a Hindu temple.
We also searched Bhakti Marga Paranitya Narasimha Temple on Google Maps which led us directly to the Elmira location.
The same claim went viral in September 2023 and was debunked by Team Webqoof.
Conclusion: The viral claim that a church in Europe was converted into a Narasimha temple is false. The same misleading claim had gone viral in 2023 and has resurfaced in 2025.
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