AP PHOTOS: Around the world, spiritual rituals and ceremony

Pictures of the Month Religion Photo Gallery (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

A child clasped his hands together prayerfully alongside his mother at a ceremony observing the Martyrdom Day of the fifth Sikh guru, Arjan Dev Ji, in Pakistan

A worshipper wearing a face mask to protect him from the coronavirus carried a goat as an offering to Hindu gods at the smoking crater of Mount Bromo, an active volcano in Indonesia

Palestinian women touched the head and face of one of their own in consolation at a funeral in the West Bank for a security officer shot dead by Israeli forces.

Images captured by AP photographers around the world in June illustrated the ways people everywhere seek spiritual sustenance in ritual and ceremony.

Sometimes it was to come together in grief, as with the dozens of mourners at an outdoor funeral where Canadian flags covered the coffins of four family members run over by a truck in what police say was a premeditated attack because they were Muslim.

But it was a more joyful occasion at the Sri Venkateswara Temple in Pennsylvania, the United States’ oldest Hindu shrine, where devotees lined up on its immaculately landscaped grounds to go inside following the final rituals of the Maha Kumbhabhishekam rededication ceremony.

On the outskirts of Addis Ababa, flickering candles lit up the faces of young Ethiopian Orthodox Christians celebrating the Feast of St. Michael, during which priests prayed for peace in the country and in its upcoming election.

And at Corpus Christi celebrations in Venezuela, penitents donned elaborate devil masks for a Carnival-like ritual dance to atone for misdeeds and ask for relief from physical ailments.

These and more are among the AP’s top faith-related images from the month.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.