Somber, joyful, magical: Some of the most compelling AP religion photos of 2023

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.

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.

—-

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s

collaboration

with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.