On Christmas Eve, thousands of people flocked to Bethlehem's Manger Square and other Holy Land sites, after two years of subdued Christmas celebrations because of the war in Gaza.

Archaeologists in Turkey have uncovered a significant fresco of Jesus as the "Good Shepherd" from Anatolia's early Christian era.

Nativity scenes at some churches are sparking fierce debates.

Filmmaker Lotfy Nathan has turned the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas into a supernatural thriller called “The Carpenter’s Son,” starring Nicolas Cage.

A South African man's prophecy about the Rapture has gone viral.

In the south of Italy, Matera is known as the “City of Stones” for its architecture.

Actor and comedian Russell Brand has pleaded not guilty in a London court to rape and sexual assault charges involving four women dating back more than 25 years.

Lorcan Finnegan’s “The Surfer” isn’t a film about toxic masculinity and tribalism.

Stitch by stitch, artisans have worked for months on the elaborate garments that will debut this week in Holy Week processions across Guatemala and beyond.

The 20th annual Three Kings Day celebration at Old Town returns this weekend.

Millions of Christians celebrate a holiday that extends past the new year.

Jake Bates was standing on the turf in his hometown of Houston when asked to reflect on an unlikely journey from learning how to sell bricks to making game-winning kicks for the Detroit Lions.

A baby Jesus figurine snatched from a nativity scene in Colorado has been returned in time for Christmas, with an apology.

One of the Vatican's Nativity scenes raised eyebrows when it was unveiled because it featured a keffiyeh, the Palestinian headscarf.

Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia is working on a children’s book centered on a generous boy and a proliferating baloney sandwich and inspired by a Biblical miracle.

The heads of major Christian denominations in Israel say that local governments across the country are demanding they pay property tax, violating a longstanding arrangement in a manner they say reflects growing intolerance for Christians in the Holy Land.

The vice chair of the UCF Board of Trustees has resigned after Seminole County deputies said they arrested him in a prostitution sting last week.

Throughout its long history, the Black Church in America has – for the most part – been a patriarchal institution, with men making up the vast majority of its ranks of clergy.

Pope Francis has rallied from respiratory problems to lead some 60,000 people in Easter celebrations and make a strong appeal for a cease-fire in Gaza and a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine.

Each Holy Week, thousands of residents of the colonial, volcano-fringed city of Antigua participate in some of Guatemala’s oldest and most popular Easter traditions.

Palm Sunday will be celebrated by Christians worldwide this Sunday.

For the second year in a row, a religious Super Bowl ad campaign promised viewers that Jesus “gets us.”.

Kenya’s director of public prosecutions has ordered that 95 people from a doomsday cult be charged with murder, manslaughter, radicalization, cruelty and child torture, among other crimes, over the deaths of 429 people believed to be members of the church.

Christians around the world will mark Epiphany on Jan. 6 with a series of celebrations.

The typically bustling biblical birthplace of Jesus looks like a ghost town on Christmas Eve, with celebrations in Bethlehem called off due to the Israel-Hamas war.

If you've ever driven through Altamonte Springs, there's a good chance you've driven right by this strange home without even noticing.

In the small town of Lamego in Portugal's Douro River Valley, where harvesting grapes for wine is in full swing in early September, one of Portugal’s largest and oldest religious festivals draws thousands.

Church leaders at The Center Arena are picking up the pieces after their church caught fire Tuesday evening.

Authorities in Kenya say the number of people who died after a pastor ordered his followers to starve to death in order to meet Jesus has surpassed 300.

In the year since the Supreme Court struck down the nationwide right to abortion, America’s religious leaders and denominations have responded in strikingly diverse ways.

The death toll linked to a doomsday cult in Kenya has hit 201 after police exhumed 22 more bodies on Saturday.

A court in Kenya has given police five more days to hold a pastor facing possible terror-related charges in the deaths of more than 100 his congregants.

Christian worshippers thronged the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem to celebrate the ceremony of the “Holy Fire.”.

Pope Francis was presiding over Easter vigil Mass at the Vatican.

Roman Catholics in Nicaragua have had to hold traditional “Stations of the Cross” and other Holy Week processions on church grounds or inside the churches amid a ban on public demonstrations.

Pope Francis, hospitalized recently with bronchitis, has skipped the traditional Good Friday nighttime procession at the Colosseum because of chilly weather in Rome.

Thousands of Christian pilgrims have participated in Palm Sunday celebrations in Jerusalem at the start of the Holy Week.

Pope Francis has presided over his first ceremony in St. Peter's Square following a three-day hospitalization for bronchitis.

Many Christians around the world flock to Jerusalem each Easter to try and relive firsthand the events written about in the Bible on what is the most important week and day on the Christian calendar.

On Super Bowl Sunday, advertising’s biggest night, religion rarely makes an appearance among the much buzzed about beer and fast-food commercials.

Pope Francis, the head of the Anglican Communion and the top Presbyterian minister have spoken out on LGBTQ rights.

Israeli police have arrested an American tourist after he allegedly knocked down and broke a statue of Jesus in a church in Jerusalem’s Old City.

The annual tradition is celebrated every Jan. 6 among Hispanics and Latinos.

In the splendor of St. Peter's Basilica, Pope Francis was presiding over Christmas Eve Mass.

Since Dec. 16, a joyful parade of people has wound its way through the streets of the Mexico City borough of Xochimilco.

The last victim of the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, is being laid to rest.

Christians have celebrated their “Holy Fire” ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

Pope Francis invoked “gestures of peace in these days marked by the horror of war” in an Easter vigil homily in St. Peter’s Basilica attended by the mayor of the occupied Ukrainian city of Melitopol and three Ukrainian lawmakers.

Pope Francis has washed the feet of a dozen inmates at a prison near Rome in a Holy Thursday ritual.

Thousands of Christian pilgrims have taken part in Palm Sunday celebrations in Jerusalem at the start of the Holy Week.

Pope Francis opened Holy Week Sunday with a call for an Easter truce in Ukraine to make room for a negotiated peace, highlighting the need for leaders to “make some sacrifices for the good of the people.”.

The holidays aren't quite over for Roman Catholics who celebrate Three Kings Day on Jan. 6.

Mayor Jerry Demings, alongside other community leaders, is preparing a program ahead of El Día de Reyes, otherwise known as Three Kings Day, on Wednesday.

Wednesday is Angel Tree distribution day at the Joy Center and families stopped by to collect the many gifts donated by the Central Florida community.

Hispanics in Osceola County will have a special Three Kings Day event on Jan. 9.

Clerics and faithful from Eastern Orthodox churches are marking the annual Holy Fire ceremony inside Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulcher church.

Rapper DMX was mourned at his memorial service with family and close friends at the Barclays Center in New York.

A 1928 church in St. Petersburg, Florida, has been renovated into a four-bedroom home, complete with a large stained glass window of Jesus.

South Korea’s daily increase in coronavirus infections exceeded 500 for the fourth straight day, a pace unseen since January, as experts raise concern about another viral surge amid a slow rollout in vaccines.

Pope Francis has celebrated a surprise Holy Thursday Mass with the cardinal he fired last year.

“For too often, you are are taken for granted and yet in situations like this, you are the ones who protect human life,” Aquila said. “No other individuals were shot or killed after these brave officers engaged the suspect,” police said in a tweet last week. AdA law enforcement official briefed last week on the shooting said Alissa's family told investigators they believed Alissa was suffering some type of mental illness, including delusions. AdTalley, who grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, took an untraditional route to becoming a police officer. A memorial service was also planned for Talley on Tuesday at a large non-denominational church, Flatirons Community Church, in Lafayette.

Polish LGBT rights activists gather outside a court which acquitted three women who faced trial on accusations of desecration, in Plock, Poland, Tuesday March 2, 2021. A Polish court has acquitted three activists who had been accused of desecration for adding the LGBT rainbow to images of a revered Roman Catholic icon. In posters that they put up in protest in their city of Plock, the activists used the rainbow in place of halos on a revered image of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)WARSAW – A Polish court on Tuesday acquitted three activists who had been accused of desecration and offending religious feelings for producing and distributing images of a revered Roman Catholic icon altered to include the LGBT rainbow. Their aim was to protest what they considered the hostility of Poland’s influential Catholic Church toward LGBT people.

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – A man was arrested Thursday in Oviedo in connection with the shooting death of a 23-year-old man killed near the University of Central Florida in January. Jesus Armando Calle, 23, was shot and killed Jan. 3 during a party at an apartment complex on University Boulevard. AdMaurico Antonio Castro Jr. was arrested Thursday by Oviedo police on second-degree murder charges. “I’m at a party and I come back inside and my friend is on the ground shot in the (expletive) neck,” the other man said. He’s dying right now.”According to the update from the sheriff’s office, tips from the community helped them to arrest Castro.

We’ve heard of people seeing images of Jesus on toast or Elvis on a chip, but how about Cookie Monster in a rock? This viral Facebook video, posted in mid-January, will make you want to scream “cooookie”. American geologist Mike Bowers, who now owns the gem, posted a video on his Facebook page. In the video, you see him opening an ordinary egg-shaped rock to reveal a clear picture that resembles the famed Sesame Street character. The structures inside the rocks are formed over time from bubbles made from the cooling of lava, steam and gases.

Mexico started deploying those vaccines Dec. 24 in Mexico City and the northern state of Coahuila. The government hopes to have 750,000 front-line health workers vaccinated by the end of January. Mexico started deploying those vaccines in December in Mexico City and the northern state of Coahuila. The government hopes to have 750,000 front-line health workers vaccinated by the end of January. The state health department said the teams are fraudulent and urged people not to give them any information.

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – A 23-year-old man was shot and killed early Sunday near the University of Central Florida, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said. UCF police tweeted after the shooting that there was not an active threat to the UCF campus. #UCFAlert: UCF PD assisting Sheriff's office ref to a shooting, just occurred at Plaza on University. (@UCFPolice) January 3, 2021[TRENDING: How to get vaccine in Florida | Will vaccine work on new strains? | Strange Florida: Here’s the proof]UPDATE: We do not believe there is an active threat to the UCF community at this time.

Christian clergymen carry a wooden relic believed to be from Jesus' manger at the Notre Dame church in Jerusalem, Friday, Nov. 29, 2019. Christians are celebrating the return to the Holy Land of a tiny wooden relic believed to be from Jesus' manger nearly 1,400 years after it was sent to Rome as a gift to the pope. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)BETHLEHEM – A tiny wooden relic that some Christians believe to be part of Jesus' manger arrived Saturday in its permanent home in the biblical city of Bethlehem 1,400 years after it was sent to Rome as a gift to the pope. The return of the relic by the Vatican was a spirit-lifting moment for the Palestinians, a small minority of whom are Christian. Troubled Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is preparing for the occasion, where pilgrims from around the world flock to the city.