Photos of the Week: Lakewood recovering; Magh Mela

By Kit Doyle · February 23, 2024
 (RNS) — Each week Religion News Service presents a gallery of photos of religious expression around the world. This week’s photo gallery includes Magh Mela pilgrims in India, Lakewood Church recovering from a shooting and more. Hindu holy men perform a ritual by burning dried cow dung cakes in earthen pots at the Sangam, the confluence of sacred rivers the Yamuna and the Ganges at the annual traditional fair of Magh Mela in Prayagraj, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, India, Friday, Feb. 16, 2024. Hundreds of thousands of devout Hindus bathe at the confluence during the astronomically auspicious period over 45 days celebrated as Magh Mela. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh) Hindu holy men walk as they gather to take a holy dip at the Sangam, the confluence of three rivers — the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati, at the annual traditional fair of Magh Mela in Prayagraj, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, India, Saturday, Feb. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh) Advocates for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war attend a Durham City Council meeting at City Hall on Feb. 19, 2023, in Durham, North Carolina. (RNS photo/Yonat Shimron) Pastor Joel Osteen prays during a service at Lakewood Church, Sunday, Feb. 18, 2024, in Houston. Osteen welcomed worshipers back to the Texas megachurch for the first time since a woman with an AR-style weapon opened fire between services the previous Sunday, Feb. 11. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip) Worshippers pray during a service at Lakewood Church, Sunday, Feb. 18, 2024, in Houston. It was the first service at the Texas megachurch since a woman with an AR-style weapon opened fire the previous Sunday. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip) Luca Fizzarotti, center, pours water on hands during a ritual with the Communitas Populi Romani, Feb. 10, 2024, near the Forum in Rome. (RNS photo/Claire Giangravè) Kashmiri Muslim brides at a marriage of 30 couples in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024. Mass weddings in India are organized by social organizations primarily to help economically weaker families who cannot afford the high ceremony costs as well as the customary dowry and expensive gifts that are still prevalent in many communities. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan) Italian farmers usher a cow into St. Peter's Square at the Vatican prior to Pope Francis' Angelus prayer, Sunday, Feb. 18, 2024. Farmers across Italy have been demanding changes in European Union farming policies and measures to combat production cost hikes. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini) Workmen erect scaffolding around the 17th century, 95ft-tall bronze canopy by Giovan Lorenzo Bernini surmounting the papal Altar of the Confession in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024. The year-long restoration of the monumental baldacchino, or canopy, of St. Peter's Basilica, the first comprehensive work on Bernini's masterpiece in 250 years, is expected to be completed before Pope Francis' 2025 Jubilee. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini) A man wears a 'Make America Pray Again' hat before Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the National Religious Broadcasters convention at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV) Archival Photos Mrs. Lillian Webb, a secretary in the National Council of Churches’ Department of Stewardship and Benevolence, is the first woman to be ordained as an itinerant minister in the New York Annual Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, circa May 1964. Webb is congratulated here by the Rev. Malcolm Blackburn, associate executive director of the department, which she will continue to serve. Blackburn delivered the ordinate sermon at the Macedonia AME Church in Flushing, New York. (RNS archive photo. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society.) Archbishop Gunnar Hultgren of Uppsala, right, Primate of the Swedish Lutheran Church, greets Dr. Arthur Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, as Ramsey arrives for observances marking the 800th anniversary of the Archdiocese of Uppsala in Sweden, on June 12, 1964. King Gustaf VI Adolf and Queen Louise of Sweden and prominent Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox churchmen took part in the celebration. (RNS archive photo. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society.)
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