Madonna performs during her first ever concert in Russia at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, late Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2006.(Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery >>>

BEIJING, Sept. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Pop star Madonna took to the stage of Luzhniki Stadium, the biggest stadium in Moscow on Tuesday night for her global "Confessions" tour despite a handful of religious protesters that threatened to disrupt the performance.

  ;  The culmination of the concert came when Madonna sang while suspended from a cross, which was also the heart of objections to the show.

    The 48-year-old U.S. pop star has outraged Christian groups across Europe this summer by staging a mock crucifixion and wearing a crown of thorns on her round-the-world tour.

    Russian fundamentalist Christians labeled the singer "the subject of a holy inquisition," and protesters at the stadium drove a stake through a Madonna poster, calling her an American Satanist.

    More than 50,000 people attended the concert, where the best seats cost more than 900 U.S. dollars -- nearly twice the monthly salary of an average Muscovite. Meanwhile, the police official said about 7,000 law enforcers were on duty for the concert with 3,500 of them at the stadium.

    The American pop diva told her fans it had always been her dream to perform in the Russian capital.

    Last week Monday hundreds of Orthodox Christians gathered in central Moscow demanding the cancellation of the Madonna concert. Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Muslim community advised believers to stay away.

    "I think a deeply believing person would never go to the concert," the Rev. Vsevolod Chaplin, a spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church, told the media.

    "This lady ... plays with religious symbols, and I think it's not only a matter of financial advancement of her production but it's also a kind of attempt to justify and sanctify her message and her sins, using something holy," he said. Enditem

    (Agencies)