Photos of the Year

This week’s gallery includes some of the best images from 2018.

A man rides a horse through a bonfire as part of a ritual in honor of Saint Anthony the Abbot in San Bartolome de Pinares, Spain, on Jan. 16, 2018. On the eve of Saint Anthony's Day, dozens ride their horses through the narrow cobblestone streets of the small village of San Bartolome during the

(RNS) — Each week Religion News Service presents a gallery of photos of religious expression around the world. This week’s gallery includes some of the most memorable images from 2018.

A man rides a horse through a bonfire as part of a ritual in honor of Saint Anthony the Abbot in San Bartolome de Pinares, Spain, on Jan. 16, 2018. On the eve of Saint Anthony’s Day, dozens ride their horses through the narrow cobblestone streets of the small village of San Bartolome during the “Luminarias,” a tradition that dates back 500 years and is meant to purify the animals with the smoke of the bonfires and protect them for the year to come. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

A super blue blood moon rises behind the 2,500-year-old Parthenon temple on the Acropolis of Athens, Greece, on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. On that day, much of the world saw not only a blue moon (a second full moon with a month) and a supermoon (a full moon at the moon’s perigee), but also a lunar eclipse, all rolled into one celestial phenomenon. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)


Revelers perform during a Carnival parade in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Feb. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)

Hindu holy men burn dried cow dung as they perform rituals at Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers on the “Basant Panchami” festival day in Allahabad, India, on Jan. 22, 2018. Basant Panchami is celebrated by worshipping Hindu goddess of knowledge and wisdom, Saraswati and marks the advent of spring. Hundreds of thousands of devout Hindus bathe at the confluence during the astronomically auspicious period of over 45 days celebrated as “Magh Mela.” (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

Visitors pay their respects as the casket of the Rev. Billy Graham lies in honor at the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, on Feb. 28, 2018. It’s a rare honor for a private citizen to lie in honor at the Capitol. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Parents, including a women bearing an ash cross on her forehead, wait for news after a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., which occurred on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018. Nikolas Cruz, a former student, was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder Thursday morning. (AP Photo/Joel Auerbach)

A Yemeni militiaman stands atop a limestone column at the Awwam Temple, also known as the Mahram Bilqis, in Marib, Yemen, on Feb. 3, 2018. Experts fear the temple, as well as other historic and cultural wonders across Yemen beyond those acknowledged by international authorities, remain at risk as the country’s stalemated, Saudi-led war against Shiite rebels rages on. (AP Photo/Jon Gambrell)

Visitors hold their hands out to receive the sun’s energy as they celebrate the Spring equinox atop the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico, on March 21, 2018. Although the official vernal equinox occurred on Tuesday, thousands of visitors were expected to climb the ancient pyramid Wednesday to greet the sun and celebrate the beginning of Spring. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)


A participant throws a spear during Pasola, a ritual war and spear-fighting festival, on the island of Sumba, in central Indonesia, on March 10, 2018. Men throw spears to knock the opponent off his horse. Volunteers retrieve fallen spears and return them to the fighters. RNS photo by Alexandra Radu

Penitents take part in the procession of the “Exaltacion de La Santa Cruz” brotherhood, during Holy Week in Zaragoza, in northern Spain, on March 29, 2018. Hundreds of processions take place throughout Spain during Holy Week. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)

Holocaust survivor Hannah Beker, 79, has fingernail polish applied in Ramat Gan, Israel, on April 9, 2018. Seventy Holocaust survivors, representing the country’s 70th anniversary, took part in a beauty “makeover” during Beauty Heroines, an event held for elderly Holocaust survivors who endured the horror the Nazi genocide of World War II that killed 6 millions Jews. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Nepalese devotees pull ropes tied to the chariot of Hindu god Bhairava during Biska Jatra Festival in Bhaktapur, Nepal, on April 10, 2018. During the festival, also regarded as Nepalese New Year, images of Hindu god Bhairava and his female counterpart Bhadrakali are enshrined in two large chariots and pulled to an open square after which rituals and festivities are performed. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Mats are laid and checked in preparation for celebrating International Day of Yoga, in Dehradun, India, on June 20, 2018. International Day of Yoga was celebrated on June 21. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, right, playfully pinches the nose of a senior monk as he arrives to give a talk to Tibetan youth in Dharmsala, India, on June 7, 2018. Every year the Tibetan leader speaks to young Tibetans to introduce them to Buddhist precepts. (AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia)


Girls line up as they wait for the start of the Corpus Christi feast day procession in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on May 31, 2018. Corpus Christi is a moveable feast, marking the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, celebrated on the eighth Thursday after Easter. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)

Meghan Markle and her bridal party walk down the aisle at the wedding ceremony of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle in Windsor, near London, England, on May 19, 2018. (Danny Lawson/pool photo via AP)

Palestinians clash with Israeli forces after a rally to mark the 70th anniversary of what Palestinians call their “nakba,” or catastrophe — the uprooting of hundreds of thousands in the Mideast war over Israel’s 1948 creation, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, on May 15, 2018. Tensions were also elevated due to the opening of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem early in the week. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Members of the Malaysian Islamic authority perform “Rukyah Hilal Ramadan,” the sighting of the new moon to determine the start of the holy fasting month of Ramadan in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on May 15, 2018. (AP Photo/Sadiq Asyraf)

Men paint decorative motifs on an elephant in preparation of the annual Rath Yatra, or Chariot procession, in Ahmadabad, India, on July 13, 2018. The three idols of Hindu God Jagannath, his brother Balabhadra and sister Subhadra are taken out in a grand procession in specially made chariots, called raths, which are pulled by thousands of devotees during the Rath Yatram or the chariot procession festival. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)

A sign reading “No Muslim Ban Ever” at a protest against the Supreme Court ruling upholding President Trump’s travel ban outside the the Supreme Court in Washington, on June 26, 2018. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)


Andean religious leaders perform a New Year’s ritual at the ruins of the ancient city of Tiwanaku, Bolivia, early Thursday, June 21, 2018. Bolivia’s Aymara indigenous communities are celebrating the Andean new year 5,526 as well as the Southern Hemisphere’s winter solstice, which marks the start of a new agricultural cycle. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

Asmina Bano, center, is comforted by family members and neighbors at her home in Kolgaon village, India, on July 24, 2018. Her husband, a cattle trader, had died after being thrashed and lynched by a Hindu mob last week for alleged cattle smuggling. Cows are considered sacred by Hindus, and slaughtering them or eating beef is illegal or restricted across much of India. The attack was one of a series against minority groups that has occurred since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party swept elections in 2014.  (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

The faithful gather under umbrellas to listen to Pope Francis’ message, delivered from his studio window of the Apostolic palace, during the angelus noon prayer in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on July 15, 2018. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Soccer coach Ekkapol Chanthawong, front, and members of the soccer team recently rescued from a flooded cave, attend a Buddhist ceremony as they prepare to be ordained as Buddhist monks and novices in the Mae Sai district, Chiang Rai province, northern Thailand, on July 25, 2018. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Rohingya Mulsim boys greet each other as girls enjoy a ride in a ferris wheel, brought to their refugee camp for Eid al-Adha celebrations at Kutupalong, Bangladesh, on Aug. 22, 2018. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees are celebrating Eid al-Adha in sprawling Bangladeshi camps where they have been living amid uncertainty over their future after they fled Myanmar to escape violence and a massive crackdown. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

A Pakistani vendor makes a design on a camel to attract customers at a cattle market set up for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha in Karachi, Pakistan, on Aug. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)


A cargo ship floats past the famous Kalyazin Bell Tower, part of the submerged monastery of St. Nicholas, in the town of Kalyazin located on the Volga River, 111 miles northeast of Moscow, Russia, Aug. 9, 2018. After the construction of the Uglich Dam in 1939 to form the Uglich Reservoir, the old parts of Kalyazin, including several medieval structures, were submerged under the reservoir’s waters. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

Orthodox nuns in front of the monument to Prince Vladimir in Moscow, Russia, on July 28, 2018, after a ceremony marking the 1,030th anniversary of the adoption of Christianity by the prince, then the leader of Kievan Rus, a loose federation of Slavic tribes that preceded the Russian state. Speaking to a crowd of thousands of clergy and believers at the statue near the Kremlin, President Putin said adopting Christianity was “the starting point for the formation and development of Russian statehood, the true spiritual birth of our ancestors, the determination of their identity.” (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool)

An Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man of the Vizhnitz Hassidic sect prays on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean as he participates in a Tashlich ceremony in Herzeliya, Israel, on Sept. 17, 2018. Tashlich, which means “to cast away” in Hebrew, is the practice in which Jews go to a large flowing body of water and symbolically “throw away” their sins by throwing a piece of bread, or similar food, into the water before the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

An idol of elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesha is wrapped in a red cloth as it is transported to a Ganesha Chaturthi festival in Ahmadabad, India, on Sept. 13, 2018. The ten-day long festival celebrating the birth of Ganesha began Sept. 13. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)

The flag-draped casket of former President George H.W. Bush passes through Magnolia, Texas, on Dec. 6, 2018, along the train route from Spring to College Station, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, Pool)

A man takes a selfie with the Floating Mosque of Palu, on Oct. 6, 2018.  The mosque, which is built over water, was cut off from shore when its foot bridge was broken during the massive earthquakes and tsunami that hit Palu, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, on Sept. 28, 2018.  (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)


Framed in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, a fisherman casts his line into the Tidal Basin at dawn in Washington, on Oct. 1, 2018. (AP Photo/J. David Ake)

Artists of Warsaw’s Jewish theatre perform the Yiddish language play “Biblical Songs” based on Itzik Manger’s Khumesh Lider, or Bible Poems, and directed by Romanian director Andrei Munteanu, inside the Great Synagogue in Bucharest, Romania, on Oct. 9, 2018. The show is part of the International Yiddish Language Festival, organized by the Jewish State Theatre and commemorating 142 years since the opening in in 1876 of the first Yiddish theater in the world, in the north-eastern Romanian city of Iasi. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)

A pumpkin carved with the message ‘Pittsburgh Strong’ sits among flowers outside the Tree of Life synagogue, on Nov. 1, 2018, as part of a makeshift memorial dedicated to those killed while worshipping at the synagogue on Oct. 27 in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Methodist Bishop LaTrelle Easterling, left, and Episcopal Bishops Mariann Budde, center, and V. Gene Robinson pray over Matthew Shepard’s ashes during the “Thanksgiving and Remembrance of Matthew Shepard” service at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, on Oct. 26, 2018. The ashes of Matthew Shepard, whose brutal murder in the 1990s became a rallying cry for the gay rights movement, were laid to rest at the cathedral. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Devotees light earthen lamps on the banks of the River Sarayu as part of Diwali celebrations in Ayodhya, India, on Nov. 6, 2018. Citizens of the north Indian city of Ayodhya attempted to break the Guinness World Record for most lit earthen lamps on the banks of river Saryu on the occasion of Diwali – the festival of light. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

Women sit with their decorated human skulls at the General Cemetery during the Natitas Festival in La Paz, Bolivia, on Nov. 8, 2018.  The festival is a mix of Andean ancestral worship and Roman Catholic beliefs. Experts say it was common in pre-Columbian times to keep skulls as trophies and display them to symbolize death and rebirth. The Catholic Church considers the festival to be pagan, but it doesn’t ban people from taking part. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)


Members of the LGBTQ community dance to celebrate after the country’s top court struck down a colonial-era law that made homosexual acts punishable by up to 10 years in prison, in Bangalore, India, on Sept. 6, 2018. The court had ruled on a petition filed by five people who challenged the law, saying they are living in fear of being harassed and prosecuted by police. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Jason Coffman, right, father of Cody Coffman, is comforted by Anthony Ganczewski at a funeral service for his son on Nov. 14, 2018, in Camarillo, Calif. Cody Coffman was among a dozen people killed in a Nov. 7 shooting at a country music bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Children walk through the Cathedral of Light as part of an illuminated trail through London’s Kew Gardens, on Nov. 21, 2018. The magnificent after-dark landscape, lit by more than one million twinkling lights, was part of a spectacular year-end light and sound installation that runs through early January. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

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