The Rev Ian Paisley has denounced a BBC programme to be broadcast on Sunday as "nothing less than a regurgitation of hellish libels on the virginity of Mary and the person of God incarnate in flesh."
He was referring to a documentary, The Virgin Mary, which will be broadcast on BBC I television at 8 p.m. next Sunday.
"The programme, we are told, will present a threefold explanation of how Mary came to be pregnant.
"First she was raped by a Roman soldier; second, that she fell pregnant by another man; and third, that the child was Joseph's, conceived before marriage," he said.
But "to reject the virgin birth was to imply that our Lord was a nameless bastard," he added.
However, Dr Paisley believes that Joseph and Mary had two sons subsequently, James and Jude.