Photos of the Week

This week’s photo selection includes solstices and a solar eclipse, subdued Indian commemorations of Rath Yatra and International Yoga Day, and more. 

(RNS) — Each week Religion News Service presents a gallery of photos of religious expression around the world. This week’s photo selection includes solstices and a solar eclipse, subdued Indian commemorations of Rath Yatra and International Yoga Day, and more. 

This drone photo shows a boat carrying ethnic Rohingya Muslims, off Lhoksukon, North Aceh, Indonesia, Wednesday, June 24, 2020. Indonesian fishermen discovered over 90 hungry, weak Rohingya Muslims on this wooden boat adrift off Indonesia’s northernmost province of Aceh. Police say they were found on the rickety boat about 4 miles off the coast. They cried out for help and jumped onto the fishermen’s boat, but its engine also stopped working on the way to shore. (AP Photo/Zik Maulana)


A girl wears a flower crown she made at a workshop for children during an event inspired by pre-Christian traditions at the Dimitrie Gusti Village Museum in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, June 24, 2020. According to pre-Christian traditions, fairies, called ‘Sanziene’ in Romanian, come to earth around the summer solstice bringing fertility to land and beings for the coming summer. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Andean spiritual leaders, many wearing masks to combat the spread of the coronavirus, perform a new year’s ritual at the Mirador Jach’a Apacheta de Munaypata, in La Paz, Bolivia, early Sunday, June 21, 2020, the winter solstice in the southern hemisphere. Aymara Indigenous communities are celebrating the Andean new year 5,528. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

Family members dressed in while stand in respect as the body of Rayshard Brooks is carried out at his funeral in Ebenezer Baptist Church on Tuesday, June 23, 2020 in Atlanta. Brooks, 27, died June 12 after being shot by a police officer in a Wendy’s parking lot. (Curtis Compton/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

Inhabitants of Resurrection City, home of the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, read newspaper accounts on June 8, 1968, of the capture of James Earl Ray, the accused assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in London. Announcement of the capture was read over the public address system in the campsite. RNS archive photo. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society

Professional Lucha Libre wrestler La Zorra waits in line to receive a donation of household items, in Mexico City, Tuesday, June 16, 2020. Former wrestler El Fantasma, the president of Mexico City’s Lucha Libre commission, organized donations provided by the city’s Jewish community to help support more than 200 professional wrestlers who have been unable to work for months due to the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

A Hindu holy man performs yoga at Sangam, the confluence of rivers the Ganges and the Yamuna in Prayagraj, India, Sunday, June 21, 2020. Sunday marked International Yoga Day. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

Hindu priests participate in the annual chariot procession of Lord Jagannath in Puri, India, Tuesday, June 23, 2020. Priests pulled the three chariots during the annual Rath Yatra of Jagannath temple, as devotees stayed away following a Supreme Court order in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Strict precautions were put in place before the festival, including a curfew, disinfecting the road and increased security measures. (AP Photo)


A Hindu devotee, wearing a mask as a precaution against the coronavirus, performs rituals during a solar eclipse at Banganga in Mumbai, India, Sunday, June 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)

Pope Paul VI told a general audience that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima was an “outrage against civilization” and renewed his plea to all nations to ban nuclear weapons, August 8, 1965. The pope addressed a large crowd of faithful and tourists from the balcony of the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo. Speaking two days after the 20th anniversary of the Hiroshima holacaust, he said there must be an end to the “terrible art that creates these weapons, multiplies and stores them for the terror of peoples.” He prayed that the world “would never again see such an unfortunate day as that of Hiroshima.” RNS archive photo. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society

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