‘Michelangelo of Long Beach’ : Religion: Artist applies first painting of religious icon on ceiling of Greek Orthodox church as part of a three-year project.

Like a modern-day Michelangelo, Stathis Trahanatzis worked for five months this year in a 32-by-15-foot space atop wooden scaffolding at the end of a narrow 60-foot ladder.

The artist spent his days high above the floor plastering an enormous painting of Jesus to the domed ceiling of the Assumption Greek Orthodox Church in Long Beach. Sometimes he rested in a sleeping bag on the narrow perch, awakening every three hours to check the consistency of the glue with which he was attaching the gold leafing for the portrait’s background.

Because this is California, there are some differences between Trahanatzis’ technique and Michelangelo’s. While the 16th-Century Italian artist painted his images directly onto the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Trahanatzis--mindful of potential earthquake damage--painted his onto a single canvas first, then pasted the canvas, much like wallpaper, onto the plaster. In the event of an earthquake, the artist said, the canvas will be less likely to crack and easier to repair.

But like his famous predecessor, this modern aesthete brims with religious fervor and passionate dedication to his work. “It takes a lot of concentration and spiritual preparation,” said Trahanatzis, 53. “When I am working I forget everything.”

The artist’s perch was in a church that has been under construction for nearly two years. Founded by a group of Greek immigrants in 1937, the congregation formerly occupied a building on the city’s gang-infested west side. After muggings and vandalism prompted them to sell the facility, they relocated to a former clothing store in the Marina Pacifica Mall in Long Beach while workers constructed a church on the city’s more affluent east side.

The church at the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Colorado Street officially opens today. Members of the 283-family congregation will get their first glimpse of the painted icon under the blue-and-white-tiled dome--an 18-foot-high figure of Jesus done in the traditional Byzantine style associated with Greek Orthodox churches since the 14th Century.

But the opening marks only the beginning of a three-year-project. Within that time, church officials say, they expect nearly the entire interior of the 10,264-square-foot building to be painted with religious icons--a distinction that may make the church an artistic monument in Southern California; one of the few traditional Byzantine churches in the Western Hemisphere painted entirely by a single artist.

“I’m elated with the work,” said Father Michael Kouremetis, the church’s pastor. “It’s very humbling.”

The pastor first met the artist in 1977 while Trahanatzis was painting the inside of a cathedral in Chicago. “I was looking at his work and I said: ‘Stathis, if I ever build a church I want you to paint it,’ ” Kouremetis said.

A native of Greece, the artist--one of a handful in America specializing in Greek Orthodox religious icons done in the Byzantine style--painted his first picture at age 3 and through most of his childhood dreamed of painting his neighborhood church.

“I didn’t like kindergarten because I wanted them to teach me how to mix paints and, instead, I had to learn the ABC’s,” he said. Later, Trahanatzis studied art in Paris and sold portraits and landscapes for a living. In 1960, he returned to Greece to study Byzantine art.

Since then, he said, he has traveled throughout the world studying the works of anonymous artists in churches. “The artistic road to the mountain is via the desert,” he said. “All these years I’ve studied and prepared; now, this is like presenting the meal.”

The centerpiece of that “meal” is a huge figure of Jesus holding the Holy Gospel in his left hand and blessing the church with his right. Painted in vivid green, pink, blue and gray, the figure is positioned as if emanating from the altar below the 32-foot-wide dome. As in other Greek Orthodox churches, Kouremetis said, the altar is situated at the east end of the building so that worshipers will symbolically enter the church facing the eastern light and leave it facing the western darkness.

Still being painted on separate canvases to be attached to the ceiling directly beneath the Jesus figure are depictions of the Virgin Mary, St. John the Baptist and six angels. While the scaffolding has been removed for the opening, Kouremetis said, it will be returned so that the work can be completed.

“My hope is that people who see these icons will temporarily be transported from this world into a godly-like state,” Kouremetis said.

Before the work began, the pastor ritualistically sprinkled the artist’s brushes and paints with holy water. Trahanatzis then spent several days praying and fasting to clear his mind of worldly concerns.

The artist retired to his Burbank studio where he painted the Jesus figure on a canvas. To make the image appear properly proportioned when viewed from the pews, Trahanatzis said, he had to visualize it in light of the dome’s curvature and the fact that it will be seen from 60 feet away.

Next, Trahanatzis--who will be employed full time by the church until the project is completed--erected the scaffolding in order to paste the painted canvas to the ceiling and apply the gold leafing. During much of this period he lived in a small attic storage area in the church, which he intends to occupy until the work is finished in 1994.

Kouremetis said the church is providing room and board to help the artist stay close to the work, both physically and mentally.

But Trahanatzis sees his job primarily as a spiritual exercise.

“This is my world, my neighborhood,” he said of the church and its partially painted walls. “(God) is the only power and I need (Him) for help. My purpose is to bring people to see that Christ is alive.”