Medieval Europeans thought about politics in terms of leadership and often criticized rulers for ‘tyranny’ − both in government and in the church.
A man walks past posters of the film ‘PM Narendra Modi,’ a biopic on the Indian prime minister, during its launch in Mumbai, India, in 2019.
AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool
Preminda Jacob, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Ahead of elections in India, a series of films that promote the ruling party’s right-wing ideology are seeking to influence voters. An art historian explains how the trend started.
A Khalsa Day parade in Toronto, a celebration of Baisakhi held in April 2015.
Colin McConnell/Toronto Star via Getty Images
The United Methodist Church will hold its General Conference, delayed several years by the pandemic, in April 2024. The meeting comes amid a dramatic divide over LGBTQ+ rights.
A stained-glass window that was part of a church shows a dark-skinned Jesus, which was unusual at the time.
Michel M. Raguin
A scholar of early Christian literature writes that religious theories around celestial events are part of a larger human pattern to find meaning. And they go back thousands of years.
El Castillo pyramid illuminated at night under a starry sky in Chichen Itza, Mexico, one of the largest Maya cities.
Matteo Colombo/DigitalVision via Getty Images
The skies and the gods were inseparable in Maya culture. Astronomers kept careful track of events like eclipses in order to perform the renewal ceremonies to continue the world’s cycles of rebirth.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks after being released from prison for leading a boycott.
Donald Uhrbrock/The Chronicle Collection via Getty Images
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 mosaic of the Resurrection in the Basilica of St. Paul in Harissa, Lebanon.
FredSeiller/Wikimedia Commons
Ideas about resurrection had been developing for centuries before Jesus’ life, but his followers took them in new directions.
A procession at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, believed by many Christians to be the site of the crucifixion and burial place of Jesus Christ.
AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner
A Christian Palestinian human rights scholar who grew up in Bethlehem writes about the special time of Easter, but also about the restrictions on Palestinian Christians.
Thousands of Catholics travel by foot to Santuario de Chimayo, in northern New Mexico, during an annual Good Friday pilgrimage.
AP Photo/Morgan Lee
Hundreds of thousands of visitors come to the Santuario de Chimayó throughout the year, but the pilgrimage during the week before the celebration of Easter is the high point.
Tributes left at a memorial for Flaco the owl in Central Park in New York.
AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews
Owls, once seen as harbingers of death, are now celebrated in popular literature and culture in North America and Britain.
Esther denouncing Haman, who, according to the Purim story, attempted to have all Jews within the Persian Empire massacred.
Hutchinson's History of the Nations/Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Whether thousands of years ago or right now, fans have always created new stories based on familiar characters, weaving their own experiences into the tale.
A Catholic schoolroom in the U.S. around 1930.
Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
The Therigatha, a collection of poems written in Pāli by Buddhist nuns, reveals that women’s enlightenment may not necessarily require renunciation of domestic life.
Israeli police scuffle with ultra-Orthodox Jews as they block a main road in Jerusalem during an October 2017 protest against Israeli army conscription.
AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File