In the searing heat of Mecca, throngs of Muslims from around the world converged for the annual Hajj pilgrimage.
In the round-the-clock darkness of the polar night, a Lutheran pastor in the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard persevered in her ministry to one of the world’s most remote towns.
Associated Press photographers were on the scene — there and in scores of other locales ranging from the flood-stricken mountains of northern India to the sacred volcano Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Their mission: Finding myriad ways to convey how faith and spiritualism, in their many forms, manifested themselves around the world in 2023.
They accompanied Pope Francis on his epic journeys to Africa and Mongolia. They chronicled a weekend retreat in Utah where followers of Hummingbird Church partook in the psychedelic brew known as ayahuasca. The photos’ subjects include weary, hopeful migrants worshipping in northern Mexico near the U.S. border, and a 103-year-old Catholic nun serving as chaplain for the men’s basketball team at Loyola University Chicago.
For the AP’s Religion Team, its flagship project of the year took a sweeping, in-depth look at a global phenomenon — the dramatic increase in the number of people who are nonbelievers or unaffiliated with any organized religion — the so-called “nones.” The powerfully illustrated package included reports from the U.S., Italy, South America, the Middle East, India, Japan and Nigeria.
Students at a college with faces painted in blue pose for the media at an event held ahead of Hindu festival Janmashtami in Mumbai, India, Monday, Sept. 4, 2023. The nones in India come from an array of belief backgrounds, including Hindu, Muslim and Sikh. The surge of Hindu nationalism has shrunk the space for the nones over the last decade, activists say. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
The Religion Team also ran a year-long, intermittent series on sacred sites around the world facing threats related to climate change and human development. Among the featured sites — the famed Cedars of Lebanon and a forest in Benin deemed sacred by practitioners of Voodoo.
Many of the year’s most compelling photos were somber: A U.S. Navy chaplain providing suicide-prevention counseling aboard his ship; the Auschwitz museum working to conserve 8,000 shoes of children murdered during the Holocaust; Jews and Muslims gathering for worship and prayers as the Israel-Hamas war raged in Gaza; an African American man in Baltimore wiping away tears while recalling the childhood sex abuse he endured at the hands of a white Catholic priest.
One stunning photo showed police snipers silhouetted on a Miami Beach rooftop, providing security as members of the local Jewish community gathered for a commemoration of Kristallnacht.
There was lighter subject matter as well — young people rehearsing a sacred Cambodian dance at a Buddhist temple near Minneapolis; teenage Jews of color frolicking in the lake at their one-of-a-kind summer camp in California; the “FREE BIBLES” tent at the Minnesota State Fair.
And there were photos that seemed almost magical: firewalkers in a Greek village dancing on a spring evening across burning coals in a centuries-old ritual; the hauntingly beautiful isolation of a former colony for Hawaiian leprosy patients where a Catholic priest and nun started on the path to sainthood.
“It’s almost like a desecration to try to explain how beautiful it is,” said one of the handful of nuns still based there.
A group of Brazilian tourists hold hands standing in a circle at the heart of a stone labyrinth in the Pueblo Encanto spiritual theme park in Capilla del Monte, Argentina, Wednesday, July 19, 2023. In the pope’s homeland of Argentina, Catholics have been renouncing the faith and joining the growing ranks of the religiously unaffiliated. Commonly known as the “nones,” they describe themselves as atheists, agnostics, spiritual but not religious, or simply: “nothing in particular.” (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Miryam Dietrich poses for a picture at her home in Capilla del Monte, Cordoba, Argentina, Tuesday, July 18, 2023. In the pope’s homeland of Argentina, Catholics have been renouncing the faith and joining the growing ranks of the religiously unaffiliated. Commonly known as the “nones,” they describe themselves as atheists, agnostics, spiritual but not religious, or simply: “nothing in particular.” (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Momo Nomura, a graphic artist and entrepreneur, prays before collecting Goshuin, a seal stamp certifying her visit that comes with elegant calligraphy and the season’s drawings, at Sakura Jingu in Tokyo on Aug. 30, 2023. She performs the prescribed rituals – ringing a bell, bowing and clapping. But her main purpose is getting a Goshuin, a stamp with elegant calligraphy that shrines provide for a fee to certify the visit. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Shiites participate in the Ashoura procession on the 9th day of Muharram in Karbala, Iraq, Friday, July 28, 2023. In the Middle East and North Africa, where religion is often ingrained in daily life’s very fabric, rejecting faith can come with social or other repercussions, so many of the “nones,” a group that includes agnostics, atheists and “nothing in particular” conceal that part of themselves, as blasphemy laws and policies are widespread in the region. (AP Photo/Anmar Khalil)
An Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man swings a chicken over his head as part of the Kaparot ritual in Beit Shemesh, Israel on Sept. 20, 2023. Israel is a nation perennially swept up in religious fervor and conflict. And yet, strikingly, a large portion of its population is secular, and even its insular ultra-Orthodox community loses a steady stream of members who tire of its strict religious rules. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
The Buddhist temple of Watt Munisotaram is seen on snow-covered farmland in Hampton, Minn., on Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023. Started by Cambodian refugees who had fled the Khmer Rouge’s killing fields four decades ago, it’s evolved into a 40-acre complex whose community is seeking to strengthen ties with younger generations. (AP Photo/Giovanna Dell’Orto)
From left, Gabriella Sour, Sabrina Sok and Garrett Sour rehearse traditional, sacred Cambodian dances in the Wattanak Dance Troupe studio on Friday, Feb. 3, 2023, in Minneapolis. Seeking to keep ties to both Buddhism and ancestral culture vibrant for new generations, the troupe, which started in the Buddhist temple of Watt Munisotaram, issued its first open enrollment call this winter. (AP Photo/Giovanna Dell’Orto)
An empty pitcher and shot sized cups sit on an altar during an ayahuasca ceremony hosted by Hummingbird Church in Hildale, Utah, on Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew that contains an Amazon shrub with the active ingredient, DMT, and a vine containing monoamine oxidase inhibitors that prevents the drug from breaking down in the body causing visions lasting several hours. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
Participants lay face down on the grass during an integration circle at an ayahuasca retreat in Hildale, Utah, on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022. Following each of the three ayahuasca ceremonies, Hummingbird Church asks their participants to partake in integration, or a group reflection and discussion, to help interpret messages they received from the ayahuasca. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
Svalbard Kirke member Lars-Olav Tunheim descends from Plataberget mountain during a hike in Longyearbyen, Norway, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2023. As climate change impacts the Svalbard archipelago faster and deeper than the rest of the world, its pastor is helping the community of miners and environmentalists grapple with transformation in this unforgiving, awe-inspiring wilderness. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)
Joshimath town is seen along side snow capped mountains, in India’s Himalayan mountain state of Uttarakhand, Jan. 21, 2023. For months, residents in Joshimath, a holy town burrowed high up in India’s Himalayan mountains, have seen their homes slowly sink. They pleaded for help, but it never arrived. In January however, their town made national headlines. Big, deep cracks had emerged in over 860 homes, making them unlivable. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)
Munni Devi, front, wipes her tears as she and Shanta Devi leave their house, in Joshimath, in India’s Himalayan mountain state of Uttarakhand, Jan. 19, 2023. Big, deep cracks had emerged in over 860 homes in Joshimath, where they snaked through floors, ceilings and walls, making them unlivable. Roads were split with crevices and multi-storied hotels slumped to one side. Authorities declared it a disaster zone and came in on bulldozers, razing down whole parts of a town that had become lopsided. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)
A Kashmiri man, left, touches in reverence a chain at the entrance to the shrine of Shah-e-Hamadan as he leaves after offering prayers on the third Friday of Ramadan in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Friday, April 7, 2023. Muslims across the world are marking the holy month of Ramadan, a period of intense prayer, self-discipline, dawn-to-dusk fasting and nightly feasts. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)
Loyola University basketball player, Tom Welch, shakes hands with Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, the team’s official chaplain, before attending practice on Monday, Jan. 23, 2023, in Chicago. The beloved Catholic nun captured the world’s imagination and became something of a folk hero while supporting the Ramblers at the NCAA Final Four in 2018. At the age of 103, Sister Jean is using her platform to publish her first book, “Wake Up with Purpose: What I’ve Learned in My First Hundred Years.” In the memoir she tells her story and offers life lessons and spiritual guidance. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
Charles Richardson, of Baltimore, wipes his eye while discussing his alleged abuse decades ago by a Catholic priest, in Baltimore on Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023. Black victims have largely been invisible in the Catholic sexual abuse crisis. Richardson recently came forward after the state of Maryland removed the civil statute of limitations for child sex abuse victims. (AP Photo/Steve Ruark)
Pope Francis, second from left, looks at traditional dancers performing at the Martyrs’ Stadium In Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023. Francis is in Congo and South Sudan for a six-day trip, hoping to bring comfort and encouragement to two countries that have been riven by poverty, conflicts and what he calls a “colonialist mentality” that has exploited Africa for centuries. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Morning service concludes in the annex of the Cathedral Notre Dame du Congo in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sunday Jan. 29, 2023. The cathedral is being prepared for Pope Francis’ visit to Congo and South Sudan for a six-day trip starting Jan, 31, hoping to bring comfort and encouragement to two countries that have been riven by poverty, conflicts and what he calls a “colonialist mentality” that has exploited Africa for centuries. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
Muslim pilgrims circumambulate around the Kaaba, the cubic building at the Grand Mosque, during the annual hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Monday, June 26, 2023, before heading to Mina in preparation for the Hajj, the fifth pillar of Islam and one of the largest religious gatherings in the world. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
A shoe that belonged to a child victim of the former Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau is scanned at the conservation laboratory on the grounds of the camp in Oswiecim, Poland, Wednesday, May 10, 2023. Most of the victims were Jews killed in dictator Adolf Hitler’s attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe. (AP Photo/Michal Dyjuk)
A sandstorm rolls into Dimona, Israel, as the Hebrew Israelite community marks New World Passover, an annual celebration of their 1967 exodus from the United States, Thursday, June 1, 2023. Now, dozens of their members are facing the threat of deportation. The community do not consider themselves Jewish, but they claim an ancestral connection to the Holy Land. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
Firewalkers dance across a bed of burning coals in a ritual in honor of St. Constantine in the village of Lagkadas, Greece on Monday, May 22, 2023. Firewalking is the most spectacular and public of these annual rituals that also include dancing with icons, prayer, and shared meals by associations of devotees of the Christian Orthodox saint called “anastenaria” that have held similar celebrations for centuries. (AP Photo/Giovanna Dell’Orto)
A worker asks to a tour guide person to stop taking photos to tourists due to the start of the praying time at Byzantine-era Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, June 28, 2023. With tourism reaching or surpassing pre-pandemic levels across Southern Europe this summer, iconic sacred sites struggle to find ways to accommodate both the faithful who come to pray and millions of increasingly secular visitors attracted by art and architecture. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Worshippers attend a Mass in the Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, July 9, 2023. With tourism reaching or surpassing pre-pandemic levels across Southern Europe this summer, iconic sacred sites struggle to find ways to accommodate both the faithful who come to pray and millions of increasingly secular visitors attracted by art and architecture. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Paramacharya Sadasivanatha Palaniswami stands at the base of a Rudraksha tree, which produces a bright blue fruit at the Kauai Hindu Monastery on July 10, 2023, in Kapaa, Hawaii. The monks who reside at the temple monastery practice Shaivism, one of the major Hindu traditions, which worships Shiva as the supreme being. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
From left, Subaru Telescope, W.M. Keck Observatory, and the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility sit on the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, on Saturday, July 15, 2023. Over the last 50 years, astronomers have mounted 13 giant telescopes on Mauna Kea’s summit. In 2009, they proposed an even larger Thirty Meter Telescope, which spurred lawsuits and protests by Native Hawaiian activists. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)
A Star of David hands from a fence outside the dormant landmark Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood on Thursday, July 13, 2023, the day a federal jury announced they had found Robert Bowers, who in 2018 killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue, eligible for the death penalty. The next stage of the trial with present further evidence and testimony on whether he should be sentenced to death or life in prison. It stands as the deadliest attack on Jewish people in U.S. history. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar/File)
Members of the Hebrew Israelite community rally outside of the District Court in Beersheba, Israel, ahead of a hearing on the deportation orders for dozens from their community, Wednesday, July 19, 2023. Over the decades, the community has made inroads into Israeli society, and most of them have citizenship or residency rights. But 130 members remain undocumented, and Israeli authorities have ordered them to leave. The orders have left dozens of people, some of whom have lived most of their lives in Israel, in an uncertain legal limbo.(AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
A girl watches the sunset over the scenic Kadisha Valley, a holy landmark for Lebanon’s Maronite Christians, in the northeast mountain town of Bcharre, Lebanon, Friday, July 21, 2023. For Lebanon’s Christians, the cedars are sacred, these tough evergreen trees that survive the mountain’s harsh snowy winters. They point out with pride that Lebanon’s cedars are mentioned 103 times in the Bible. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Lebanese Maronite Christian Patriarch Beshara al-Rai, second left, leads the sermon to commemorate the Feast of the Transfiguration in the Cedars of God forest, in the northeast mountain town of Bcharre, Lebanon, Saturday, Aug. 5, 2023. For Lebanon’s Christians, the cedars are sacred, these tough evergreen trees that survive the mountain’s harsh snowy winters. They point out with pride that Lebanon’s cedars are mentioned 103 times in the Bible. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Dean Wiberg, right, volunteers at the evangelical Crossroads Chapel tent, which distributes thousands of free Bibles during the Minnesota State Fair in Falcon Heights, Minn., on Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023. For many faith communities, the fair has long been an opportunity to reach a diverse crowd that can top two million. (AP Photo/Giovanna Dell’Orto)
A horse rider holds a Mongolian flag during a traditional performance at a cultural event organized for the media and entourage following Pope Francis’ visit to Mongolia, at the Mongolia Cultural Park, some 40 kilometers out of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Friday, Sept. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Pairs of oxen pull a boat-shaped float with an iconic century-old sacred image of Virgin Mary breastfeeding infant Jesus standing on the bow, during the Our Lady of Remedies procession in the small town of Lamego, in the Douro River Valley, Portugal, Friday, Sept. 8, 2023. One of Portugal’s largest and oldest religious festivals, the two-week celebrations that culminate with the procession, draw thousands. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)
A Mexican migrant prays during a service at the “Embajadores de Jesus” Christian migrant shelter in Tijuana, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023. While many places in Mexico provide shelter for migrants from other countries, some shelters in Tijuana have seen an influx of Mexicans fleeing violence, extortion and threats by organized crime. (AP Photo/Karen Castaneda)
Mexican migrants, many from Michoacan state, attend a religious service at the “Embajadores de Jesus” Christian migrant shelter in Tijuana, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023. While many places in Mexico provide shelter for migrants from other countries, some shelters in Tijuana have seen an influx of Mexicans fleeing violence, extortion and threats by organized crime. (AP Photo/Karen Castaneda)
The sun sets at the BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham, the largest Hindu temple outside India in the modern era, on Wednesday Oct. 4, 2023, in Robbinsville, N.J. The temple was partly built using marble from Italy and limestone from Bulgaria hand-carved by artisans in India and shipped to New Jersey. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)
Gilbert Kakpo, a Voodoo priest, stands by a a sacred tree, who he claims is the protector of women at the Bohouezoun sacred forest in Benin, on Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023. “Our divinity is the protector of women,” he says. “If you’re a woman who’s had miscarriages or has given birth to stillborn children and you come here for rituals, you’ll never endure those hardships again … I can’t count the number of people who have been healed or treated here.” (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)
Muslim Rutgers University’s students prepare pray on Friday, Oct. 27, 2023, in New Brunswick, N.J.For many of the university chaplains and faith leaders caring for students angered and shaken by the Israel-Hamas war, the needs are acute, the days intense. The bloodshed has roiled campuses in the United States, sparking rival rallies and competing demands.(AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)
A man prays during Friday prayers, Friday, Oct. 13, 2023, at the Islamic Center of East Lansing in East Lansing, Mich. In Muslim communities across the world, worshippers gathered at mosques for their first Friday prayers since Hamas militants attacked Israel, igniting the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. (AP Photo/Al Goldis)
A woman in conservative dress walks past a menorah standing outside a Jewish synagogue ahead of the start of Hanukkah, in Miami Beach, Fla., Friday, Dec. 1, 2023. Daily life for many Jews has been upended by the surprise attack on Oct. 7 in Israel, when Hamas militants killed about 1,200, mostly civilians, and by the rise in antisemitism worldwide during the ensuing war, in which more than 15,800 Palestinians have died. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
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