Prayerful, playful, mystical: Some of AP's most compelling religion photos of 2024
Fittingly, in photographs depicting aspects of faith, it’s often the light that is most riveting.
An Apache dancer whirling around a bonfire during a coming-of-age ceremony in New Mexico. The towers of Notre Dame Cathedral illuminated against the twilight sky ahead of its reopening five years after a devastating fire.
A vast display of earthen oil lamps glowing alongside India’s Saryu River on the eve of Diwali.
A monk plays with a dog outside a monastery in Samdrup Jongkhar, Bhutan, Sunday, Jan. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
Rev. Yileyvis Cruz stands by as congregants embrace during a service at the Metropolitan Community Church, an LGBTQ+ inclusive house of worship, in Matanzas, Cuba, Friday, Feb. 2, 2024. In recent years, the communist-run island barred anti-gay discrimination, and a 2022 government-backed “family law” allowed same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Our photographers were with Pope Francis in East Timor and New Guinea, on the longest trip of his papacy. One of them trekked to a village in Uganda for a traditional circumcision ceremony. Another was in Fatima, Portugal, as thousands of motorcyclist pilgrims held up their helmets to be blessed. Two of them joined hundreds of Tibetan Buddhists in Minnesota celebrating the 18th birthday of a U.S- born lama before he heads off to a Himalayan monastery.
Gloria Esperanza Reyes makes her monthly offering of flowers and sugarcane syrup to Yemaya, the Yoruba goddess of the sea, in Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Joy and sorrow
For the faithful around the world, joy — by tradition — is often shared collectively, as our photos illustrate.
In a Cairo neighborhood, Muslims light flares as they celebrate Iftar, the meal that ends their daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan. Indian army soldiers, dancing in their camouflage uniforms, celebrate Diwali near the Line of Control that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan. In Haiti, a dove takes flight as throngs of people attend a celebration of St. George, a Christian martyr revered by both Catholics and practitioners of Vodou.
Jeremiah Manley, left, and other attendees at The Cove, an 18-and-up, pop-up Christian nightclub, raise their arms in worship on Saturday, Feb. 17, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. The Cove was started last year by seven Black Christian men in their 20s who sought to build a thriving community and a welcoming space for young adults outside houses of worship. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
In Lakeland, Florida, a more intimate joy is palpable as Sam and Tori Earle watch their infant daughter, Novalie, swing in their backyard. Novalie was born through an embryo adoption; the Earles credit God for providing such as option to families struggling with infertility.
Another mesmerizing image of parental love: A child is baptized in Lalish, holiest temple of the Yazidi people, 10 years after an onslaught by the Islamic State group led to the killings, abductions and displacement of thousands of Yazidis.
Above ground graves are placed next to each other under the shade of a banyan tree at the Lincoln Memorial Park Cemetery, Monday, Feb. 26, 2024, in the Brownsville neighborhood of Miami. The cemetery holds the remains of 10,000 Black Americans, including some of Miami’s most influential figures including Miami’s first Black millionaire, D.A. Dorsey, and Gwen Cherry, Florida’s first Black woman to serve in Florida’s legislature. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
A woman walks down an alley in the Old City of Jerusalem, Sunday, March 10, 2024. Officials in Saudi Arabia have declared the start of the fasting month of Ramadan after sighting the crescent moon Sunday night. The announcement marks the beginning of Ramadan for many of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
In the Kenyan town of Malindi, a woman whose religious sect was targeted with horrific mass killings orchestrated by its leader, retreats into a thatched house after disclosing her ordeal.
And in Israel, mourners listen in the rain as a rabbi delivers a eulogy for Zvi Kogan, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi killed in Dubai, where he ran a kosher grocery store.
Hats reading, “God, Guns and Trump,” and “Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president,” are sold at a campaign rally for former president Donald Trump in Vandalia, Ohio, on Saturday, March 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
Devotion and prayer
Several of the photos vividly depict the depths of religious devotion — and the myriad forms it takes.
In Pakistan, Hindu pilgrims climb a steep path to reach the top of a mud volcano during a festival at one of their faith’s holiest sites. During the annual Hajj, Muslim pilgrims gather atop a rocky hill known as the Mountain of Mercy, near the holy city of Mecca.
Khenpo Paljor, a Tibetan lama from Des Moines, Iowa, leads a prayer at the Birthplace of Antioch marker, Saturday, March 16, 2024, in Antioch, Calif. Participants of the event titled “May We Gather” placed traditional Tibetan scarves on the marker as they prayed for peace and harmony. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vasquez)
On Good Friday, in the Old City of Jerusalem, Ethiopian Orthodox Christians — one of them bearing a large cross glinting in the sun — walk the Way of the Cross that commemorates Christ’s crucifixion.
In Havana, Gloria Esperanza Reyes makes her monthly offering to Yemaya, the Yoruba goddess of the sea, by tossing flowers and sugarcane syrup into the waves.
Children run past a mural memorializing 19 locals who were shot and burned in Camargo, Mexico, as they attempted to migrate to the U.S., in Comitancillo, Guatemala, Tuesday, March 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
A different form of devotion was on display at a campaign rally for Donald Trump in Vandalia, Ohio, as evidenced by the hats for sale reading, “Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president.”
Prayer is a practice shared by many faiths, in a limitless array of settings. We see youthful surfers praying during a service at the Surf Church, close to a beach near Porto, Portugal. We see a Muslim woman with her prayer beads near the Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City. And two boys praying at recess in the mosque of their private Muslim school in Marseille, France.
Residents of Ezbet Hamada in Cairo’s El Matareya district light flares as the celebrate mass breakfast, “Iftar”, the meal to end their fast at sunset, during the holy fasting month of Ramadan in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, March 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
In Haiti, we see Vodou pilgrims praying earnestly at a Mass amid the pervasive violence in their country.
In the U.S. heartland, we see Ethiopian Orthodox women at prayer in Worthington, Minnesota, and a mix of Catholic nuns and laypeople praying beside the Ohio River in Steubenville, Ohio, during the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage.
“Ramazan davulcusu” or Ramadan drummer Muzaffer Kara gets dressed with a traditional attire at his house, in Istanbul, Thursday, March 28, 2024. From the Ottoman era, drummers dressed up with traditional attire play drums in their neighbourhoods at early morning hours to wake up people for “suhoor” or pre-dawn meal during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
LGBTQ+ inclusion
While some major religions continue to view homosexual behavior as sinful, our gallery includes some eye-catching depictions of inclusion — LGBTQ-friendly services at a synagogue in New York and Christian church in Cuba; a Black pastor in Massachusetts embraced by his congregation after he summoned the nerve to disclose that he is gay; a tearful woman in New Jersey on the verge of being reinstated as a United Methodist pastor, 20 years after she was defrocked due to a now-repealed LGBTQ ban.
A Muslim woman prays near the Dome of the Rock Mosque at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for the third Friday prayers of the holy month of Ramadan in the Old City of Jerusalem, Friday, March 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Music City and monastery dogs
To close, we’ll highlight a few of the change-of-pace photos that enliven this gallery, including two from Nashville, Tennessee. It’s renowned for its country-music scene and boisterous bars along Broadway, but it’s also a place of deep faith.
At The Cove, a Christian nightclub with a no-alcohol rule, youthful patrons jubilantly raise their arms in worship. At Robert’s Western World, the Rev. Ron Blakely — sporting a cowboy hat and a wide grin — leads the Broadway honky tonk’s Sunday Gospel Hour.
Rev. Gina Stewart preaches during church service at Rankin Chapel, Sunday, April 7, 2024, in Washington. Throughout its long history, the Black Church in America has, for the most part, been a patriarchal institution. Now, more Black women are taking on high-profile leadership roles. But the founder of Women of Color in Ministry estimates that less than one in 10 Black Protestant congregations are led by a woman. “I would hope that we can knock down some of those barriers so that their journey would be just a little bit easier,” said Stewart. (AP Photo/Terrance Williams)
A different kind of music rings out in a Spanish village as Josep-Maria Grosset, a student at a bell ringer school performs at the bell tower of a 12th-century church. The school, seeking to revive the manual ringing of church bells, has graduated its first class of 18 students.
And our photographers were mindful of a hymn writer’s memorable phrase, “All creatures great and small.”
Students pray during recess in the mosque at Ibn Khaldoun, a private Muslim school, in Marseille, southern France, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)
At monasteries half-way round the world from each other, a Buddhist monk in Bhutan and an Orthodox Christian monk in New York state display their love of dogs. Not to be outdone, Presbyterian pastor Lee Scott pets one of the cows on his family farm in Pennsylvania.
Lead photo: Mexica dancers burn incense during a ceremony commemorating the 503rd anniversary of the fall of the Aztec empire's capital, Tenochtitlan, in Mexico City, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
AP photo editor Patrick Sison curated this photo gallery.
