-794d0500a12f80be.jpg

The Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral has decided not to allow the Multnomah County Republican Party to proceed with a fundraiser at the church.

(Drew Vattiat/The Oregonian)

A Greek Orthodox church in Portland on Friday yanked permission for the Multnomah County Republican Party to hold a Lincoln Day fundraising dinner tied to a controversial gun raffle.

The Multnomah County GOP

when it announced it would raffle off an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle in honor of "two great Republicans" -- Abraham Lincoln and civil rights leader Martin Luther King -- both of whom had been killed by gun-wielding assassins.

The party originally said the raffle winner would be announced at a Lincoln Day dinner on Feb. 15 at the

in Northeast Portland.

Chuck Currie, a United Church of Christ minister and longtime political activist, said he was among those urging Holy Trinity not to allow its facilities to be used for the Republican event.

"You don't honor a minister who preached non-violence by auctioning off the same kind of weapon used in the mass killings of children" at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., said Currie, who

for the Huffington Post.

Multnomah Republican Chairman Jeff Reynolds on Thursday

saying that the raffle would be held separately from the fundraising dinner. On Friday, he said he received notice from the church that it would no longer rent space to the party for the event.

Reynolds said the party is moving to obtain another venue and plans to go ahead with the dinner, which will

, the father of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

"We're going to be fine," he said, refusing to discuss what reason the church gave for cancelling on the GOP. He did add, however, that "candidly, this is what Republicans face in Multnomah County" where voters lean heavily to Democratic candidates.

A Holy Trinity worker who answered the phone confirmed that the fundraiser would not be held at the church, but she referred comment to the the church's parish council president, who could not be immediately reached.

Reynolds said that the GOP has only a few more $10 tickets to sell for the gun raffle before reaching its cap of 500. When asked if it was a mistake to tie the raffle to Lincoln and King -- who historians say

-- Reynolds replied: "I'm not going to go there today."

-- Jeff Mapes