The Olympic-logo embossed New Testament, its full name being Special Edition for Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, is a Chinese-English bilingual edition. Its publishing follows previous practices such as at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, said the report.

The CCC emphasized the cover design of the Olympic-logo embossed New Testament was endorsed by the organizing committee of the Games, free of charge for use.

However, considering the equality among different religions, the CCC said the Bible and other Christian scriptures would not be available in Beijing's hotels during the Games.

"If the Bible was made available in hotels, should the scriptures of other religions be available too?" asked Rev. Xu Xiaohong, CCC secretary general.

Liu Bainian, Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association vice president, said the churches could provide copies of the Bible to hotels if needed, rather than put the holy scripture into the rooms compulsively. However, no hotels had asked the churches to do so at present.

The annual circulation of the Bible in China is now 3 million. Besides the Chinese edition, eight ethnic minority languages and a Braille edition were are also available in domestic churches.

In accordance with the practices of the previous Olympics, a religious service center has been set up in Beijing's Olympic Village. The major religions around the world -- Catholics, Protestant, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism -- all have worship rooms in a bid to provide religious services to participants of different faiths.

(Xinhua News Agency July 23, 2008)