GOD, the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ have called on City of York Council to take a lead in saving York's Mystery Plays.

The actors who played the holy trio in the 1996 and 2000 Plays said in an open letter to the authority that it should fulfil its traditional role as facilitator and sponsor of the quadrennial production.

They said the council should cherish the Plays as central to the cultural and commercial life of York, and stressed that the authority had provided financial backing to the Plays every year up to the 2000 production in the Minster.

But their plea met with a lukewarm response from Coun Keith Orrell, executive member for leisure, who said that while the council had said it would offer support and advice, no money for the Plays had been allocated when the budget for this financial year was set.

"For this to be achieved it would have to go through the normal financial systems for allocating additional money."

Instead, he suggested that 1,000 people should be recruited to act as Patrons for the Plays, paying, for example, £50 a year, to provide funding to help employ an "organiser/fundraiser" to work full-time between productions.

"I would be happy to join the Patrons if this proved to be a feasible way forward," he said.

The appeal by John Hall (God in the 2000 production), Frances Marshall (Mary in 2000) and Rory Mulvihill (Jesus in 1996 as well as the Devil in 2000) comes after the Evening Press revealed that the Plays may not be performed again in York until at the very least 2010, while two other English cities, Chester and Coventry, are staging successful productions in their own cathedral grounds this summer.

They said there was no guarantee that the Plays would be staged again at the Minster in 2010, as had been suggested.

"The ten year gap - already too large in our view - could become indefinite," they warned.

Updated: 10:52 Tuesday, July 15, 2003