Trinity Broadcasting Network Backs Out of Easter Service

Despite having won a bitter dispute with the toss of a coin, the flamboyant Trinity Broadcasting Network is abandoning its plans to produce and televise this year's Easter sunrise service at the Hollywood Bowl, an attorney said Tuesday.

"They dropped it because of the public outcry," said Gerald Manpearl, an attorney representing Hollywood Bowl Easter Sunrise Service Inc., which says its predecessors initiated the annual service 80 years ago.

"People were outraged," Manpearl said. "The service is part of the long history of Los Angeles and Hollywood. Trinity has demonstrated in the past that what they put on isn't a community event, it's for Trinity." Elizabeth Hinckley, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn., which handles Hollywood Bowl leases for the county, confirmed that Trinity had dropped out.

She said the veteran Bowl group apparently will now produce this year's event.

Questions to Trinity were referred to Colby May, an attorney in Washington.
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A squabble between the Orange County television ministry and the Los Angeles civic group had raged for months over rights to produce this year's service.
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Many have criticized Trinity's glitzy sets, extravagant on-air personalities and the lifestyles of network founders Paul and Jan Crouch.

The Crouches drive expensive cars and own several homes, including a Newport Beach estate reported to be worth $5 million.

According to year 2000 tax documents, Trinity Christian Center of Santa Ana, which oversees a network of Trinity Broadcasting organizations and overseas ventures, had $444 million in net assets.
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Trinity Backs Out of Easter Service