DAN BROWN’S bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code is to be filmed this summer in Lincoln Cathedral.

The medieval building, notorious for the devilish “Lincoln Imp”, which is blamed for everything from sex scandals to the misfortunes of Lincoln City Football Club, will be the backdrop for the climactic scenes when the protagonists meet at the tomb of Sir Isaac Newton.

The film will star Tom Hanks, as Robert Langdon, and Audrey Tautou, as Sophie Neveu. The cathedral will be made to look like Westminster Abbey, where the scenes are set in the 593-page book.

The Da Vinci Code has sold 25 million copies in just over a year and earned its author $140 million (£77 million). It portrays Opus Dei, a personal prelature of the Roman Catholic Church, as a sinister, Mafia-style organisation and propounds the theory that Christ married Mary Magdalene and had a child.

The book has been attacked by churchmen and theologians. The Vatican condemned it as lies and has assigned a cardinal — Tarcisio Bertone, the Archbishop of Genoa — to counter the myths that it expounds.

Sony Pictures bought the rights for £3.1 million. Filming begins next month and will take place at Lincoln over five days in August, with “minimum” disruption. The cathedral will receive £100,000, which will go towards the £1 million annual building repair costs.

Lincoln has a troubled history, for which many observers blame the Imp, a jaunty carving that was, according to legend, a small devil blown in by the wind and turned to stone by angels.

After a high-profile consistory court in the 1990s, the former Dean, Dr Brandon Jackson, was acquitted of inappropriate sexual behaviour towards Verity Freestone, the former verger. At one point, the Dean said that he wanted to exorcise the cathedral of the evil spirits that he believed resided within. The ceremony was never carried out.

The cathedral was involved in an earlier sex scandal in the 1920s. In 1185 it was partly destroyed by an earthquake and over the centuries the roof has been badly damaged by three fires. The spooky atmosphere, created by irregular angles in the masonry, also makes the building the ideal setting for a conspiracy theory novel.

The Lincoln Imp has also been held responsible by some for the troubled fortunes of Lincoln City Football Club, who are known as the Imps. They were playing Bradford City on the day of the stadium fire at Valley Parade, Bradford, in 1985. Fifty-six people died and more than 260 were injured in the disaster. But, having gone to the brink of extinction, Lincoln City’s future is looking up — the team are in a play-off to decide promotion to League One.

Canon Gavin Kirk, Precentor of Lincoln, welcomed the cathedral’s involvement in the film. “It involves transforming the centre of our nave, cloister and chapter house into a replica of Westminster Abbey. We are very pleased. We think it will be good for us and it will certainly be good for the city.”

He admitted: “There will be those who think that anything to do with The Da Vinci Code is not the sort of thing a Christian church should be involved in, but our line is that the Gospel is much bigger than that. If we can get people talking about why The Da Vinci Code is not true, then that has to be good. It requires far more of a suspension of disbelief to accept the line of the The Da Vinci Code than it does the Gospels.”

The film has exposed a split in the Church over whether it is better to “sup with the Devil” or cast him out completely. Westminster Abbey declined to take part because the book is “fictitious”. The Abbey is investing in a DVD and training its marshals and wardens to explain to Da Vinci Code pilgrims exactly where Dan Brown got it wrong.

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