Photos of the Week: Lunar New Year; Quran protests

By Kit Doyle · January 30, 2023
 (RNS) — Each week Religion News Service presents a gallery of photos of religious expression around the world. This week’s photo gallery includes the Lunar New Year, protests about recent Quran desecrations and more. Worshippers burn their first joss sticks of the new year as they offer prayers at the Wong Tai Sin Temple, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023, in Hong Kong, to celebrate the Lunar New Year, which marks the Year of the Rabbit in the Chinese zodiac. (AP Photo/Bertha Wang) Kenny Loo, 71, prays outside Star Ballroom Dance Studio on Jan. 23, 2023, for the victims killed two days before in the shooting in Monterey Park, California. Authorities searched for a motive for the gunman who killed multiple people at the ballroom dance studio during Lunar New Year celebrations, slayings that sent a wave of fear through Asian American communities and cast a shadow over festivities nationwide. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) A man holds a sign during a vigil outside Monterey Park City Hall, blocks from the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, late Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023, in Monterey Park, Calif. A gunman killed multiple people at the ballroom dance studio late Saturday amid Lunar New Year celebrations in the predominantly Asian American community. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis) A man burns joss sticks as he offers prayers at Hok Lay Kiong temple in Bekasi, Indonesia, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2023. The Lunar New Year begins the Year of the Rabbit in the Chinese zodiac. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim) Visitors burn incense as they pray on the first day of the Lunar New Year holiday at the Lama Temple in Beijing, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2023. People across China rang in the Lunar New Year on Sunday with large family gatherings and crowds visiting temples after the government lifted its strict "zero-COVID" policy, marking the biggest festive celebration since the pandemic began three years ago. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) The Rev. Sally Ibrahim Azar, center, a Palestinian Christian and council member of the Lutheran World Federation, is applauded by clergy after she was ordained as the first female pastor in the Holy Land, in the Old City of Jerusalem, Jan. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo) A member of Women of the Wall, wearing Tefillin, a cubic black leather box with leather straps, takes part in the Rosh Hodesh prayer marking the new month, at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray, in the Old City of Jerusalem, Monday, Jan. 23, 2023. The group has waged a decades-long campaign for gender equality at the holy site. (AP Photo/ Maya Alleruzzo) Scores of angry protesters burn the Swedish and Dutch flags after Friday prayers outside Mohammad al-Amin Mosque to denounce the recent desecration of Islam's holy book by a far-right activists in the European countries, in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023. Earlier this month, a far-right activist from Denmark staged a protest outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm where he burned the Quran, Islam's holy book. Days later, Edwin Wagensveld, Dutch leader of the far-right Pegida movement in the Netherlands tore pages out of a copy of the Quran near the Dutch parliament and stomped on the pages. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar) Followers of the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr raise Qurans, the Muslim holy book, in response to the recent burning of a copy of the Quran in Sweden, during open-air Friday prayers in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban) Nikolai Romanov, a former monk known as Father Sergiy until he was excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church, blesses those present in the courtroom from behind a glass cage during his trial in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023. The monk, who denied that the coronavirus existed and challenged the Kremlin, was handed a new prison sentence Friday on charges of inciting hatred. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko) A man reacts next to a memorial site for a church sacristan who was killed Wednesday in Algeciras, southern Spain, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. Residents of the Spanish city of Algeciras recounted their shock after a machete-wielding attacker jumped on the altar of a church before chasing a victim into a city square and inflicting mortal wounds. The attacks on two churches by a single assailant on Wednesday night have shaken the city near the southern tip of Spain. (AP Photo/Juan Carlos Toro) Archival Photos Pope Pius XII, the first pontiff to use a typewriter, is shown working on his Italian-made machine in the library at the Vatican in Feb. 1946. A moderately speedy typist, Pope Pius XII was said to rarely make a mistake. The machine was a portable model, lacquered white. RNS archive photo. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society. The interest of Archbishop John P. Cody, new Archbishop of Chicago, in the cause of ecumenism is portrayed well in this picture taken in New Orleans on January 24, 1965. Archbishop Cody founded "Operation Understanding" in Louisiana, an annual event which saw Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Orthodox visit each other's houses of worship. Here, at a luncheon, is a typical ecumenical grouping: from left, they are Rabbi Julian Feibelman, president of the New Orleans Rabbinical Association; Greek Orthodox Bishop Silas of New Orleans; Archbishop John P. Cody; Episcopal Bishop Girault M. Jones of Louisiana; the Rev. George Wilson, executive secretary of the New Orleans Federation of Churches; and Dean William Gaines of the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral in New Orleans. RNS archive photo by Newell Schindler. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society.
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