Purple was highly valued and associated with royalty, power, and prestige in various ancient cultures, including the Roman and Byzantine Empires. So how did red creep its way in?
A ceremony to punish people for heresy, called an ‘auto da fe,’ in the town of San Bartolome Otzolotepec, in present-day Mexico.
Museo Nacional de Arte/Wikimedia Commons
Conversion was often a violent affair, but that doesn’t mean it was 100% successful. Colonial Latin America was home to many different spiritual traditions from Indigenous, African and Asian cultures.
A KKK rally in Dayton, Ohio, on Sept. 21, 1923.
Dayton Metro Library
I was drawn to Mary as a saint, an ascetic, a highly sexual individual navigating her own redemption. Is there something edifying about her story – or does it go into the feminist shame file?
The entrance at the headquarters of the Jehovah’s Witnesses Germany.
Britta Pedersen/picture alliance via Getty Images
Several members were killed March 9, 2023, in Germany. Many people hold stereotypes about Jehovah’s Witnesses but are unfamiliar with their beliefs.
The exterior view of the Bethel African American Methodist Episcopal Church at 125 S. 6th St. in Philadelphia.
Breton, William L., circa 1773-1855 Artist via the Library of Congress, World Digital Library
Millions of enslaved Africans were forcefully converted to the Christian faith. The Black church came about when African Americans began to establish their own congregations.
A couple rides on a float with a handcart during the parade for Pioneer Day, an annual Utah holiday, on July 24, 2019, in Salt Lake City.
AP Photo/Rick Bowmer
The Utah holiday is a reflection of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ slowly changing identity, a historian of Mormonism and migration writes.
Religion has been a laughing matter since the middle ages.
Apparitions of the Virgin Mary have inspired pilgrimages – and souvenirs – in Lourdes, France, for more than a century.
Culture Club/Hulton Archive via Getty Images
Dorian Llywelyn, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
St. Bernadette’s visions of the Virgin Mary in the 19th century inspired the pilgrimage site millions of Catholics flock to each year.
Grandparents are teaching Chinese calligraphy to their granddaughter and how to write Chinese New Year auspicious messages.
AsiaVision/E+ via Getty Images
The Lunar New Year celebrations that start on Feb. 1 will go on for a week. It is the year of the tiger, considered in Chinese culture as the foremost among all beasts.
Rihanna at the Met Gala in 2018 in a gender-bending pope outfit.
Justin Lane/EPA
Did Pope Joan exist? Probably not. But the legend had important resonances for the Catholic Church.
Mayflower ashore on the banks of the Thames in 1624, being broken for parts.
Dr Mike Haywood (used with the kind permission of The General Society of Mayflower Descendants)
Margaret Atwood’s handmaid has become a symbol of the subjugation of women. Anchorites were the medieval equivalent: women who were literally bricked up to keep them chaste.