Hey, remember “Beast Christ”?

Of course you do. The 1930 fresco of Jesus called “Ecce Homo” that a local art restorer in Borja, Spain, uh, “fixed” in 2012 (pictured above) went on to receive worldwide ridicule via the Internet, thanks to its soulless eyes, anime-style nose and furry chinstrap from hell.

The creator of this mesmerizing icon, Cecilia Giménez, 85, was “humiliated” when the news broke of her less-than-faithful restoration of this original artwork by the Spanish painter Elías García Martínez.

But then something funny happened.

Over the next three years, 160,000 tourists from around the world came to the Sanctuary of Mercy church in Borja to see this curiosity in person, and most of them bought lunch, a souvenir, a hotel room or a variety of other goods and/or services.

So in what can only be described as a roundabout miracle, Beast Christ saved Borja—a town with a population of roughly 5,000—from the devastating recession that the rest of Spain has suffered over the last seven years. >>>