The culmination of the concert, when Madonna sings while suspended from a cross, is at the heart of objections to the show.

"I think a deeply believing person would never go to the concert," the Rev. Vsevolod Chaplin, a spokesman for the Orthodox Church" class="lingo" key="933581358">Russian Orthodox Church, told Associated Press Television News. "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."

The singer arrived in the Russian capital late Monday and kept a low profile, waving at fans waiting to glimpse her as she slipped into her downtown hotel, the Park Ararat. She work a black parka with a fur- lined hood, wide-legged parachute pants and dark glasses.

More than 50,000 people have bought tickets for the heavily advertised performance, and some 7,000 police officers were to be on hand in and around Luzhniki Stadium, on a bend in the Moscow River near Gorky Park.

The Russian Orthodox Church has objected to the performance, pushing hard for the organizers to push it back from the initially planned date of Sept. 11—both in a sign of respect for the victims of the terror attacks in the United States five years ago, and because that date coincided with a church holiday, the Feast of St. John the Baptist.

The venue was also switched. The concert originally was planned for a stage on the Vorobyovye Gory (Sparrow Hills), overlooking the Moscow River, but the Orthodox Church said that would be inappropriate because two churches are located there. The organizers scrambled to find another site after police said they could not ensure security in such a sprawling area.

City authorities pushed for the concert to be held at Tushino Airfield, the site of many outdoor rock extravaganzas. However, Tushino is on the outskirts of the city, it is anything but scenic and its security image is shadowed by the 2003 double suicide bombing at a concert there that killed 14 spectators.

Scores of Orthodox protesters, dressed in religious costume and carrying religious symbols, have held noisy rallies over the past few weeks to protest the concert.

"We are conducting an intensive spiritual fight against her name: We are standing up to her satanic spirit," said Dmitry Antonov, who said belonged to a group called the Union of Orthodox Crusaders. "We will try to disrupt the concert."

His colleague, Leonid Nikshish, said Madonna could sing whatever she wants, "but as soon as she starts to defile the cross, we will do everything possible to make sure she's kicked out of Russia and not just Russia."