The rituals leading up to Easter are the same. The solemn Good Friday processions. The Holy Saturday blessings of foods that were avoided during Lent. The liturgies accompanied by processions, bells and chants.

But while Easter is the holiest of holy days on the church calendar, marking the day Christians believe Jesus triumphed over death, many members of Ukrainian Orthodox churches across the United States are finding it difficult to summon joy at a time of war.

Many are in regular contact with relatives or friends suffering amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine,...

Growing up in this small town near the western edge of Michigan, Christy Berghoef learned to live by a simple rule.

“To be Christian is to be Republican is to be 'pro-life,'” she said recently, sitting in a renovated shed-turned-office behind her house on the 40-acre farm of willows and gladiolus where she was raised. "All else makes you a 'baby killer.'"

Berghoef abided those harsh judgments. As a child, she prayed for abortions to end. In her teens, she marched in antiabortion vigils and carried signs at protests. After college, she found a job on Capitol Hill for...

Twenty years ago, Amelia Lopez Patrykus stood outside Sacred Heart Catholic Church, waiting for a free meal and groceries. The line was just blocks from the Rio Grande, separating Mexico from her new home in the United States.

She had just arrived from Jalisco, Mexico, with her children and, in those first few years in Texas, the church provided a lifeline, offering staples like rice and cans of tomatoes, and spiritual and educational support. It is where her daughter sang...

In February 2022, evangelical leader Franklin Graham called on his followers to pray for Vladimir Putin. His tweet acknowledged that it might seem a “strange request” given that Russia was clearly about to invade Ukraine. But Graham asked that believers “pray that God would work in his heart so that war could be avoided at all cost.”...

Jessica Disla committed to Islam in May 2020 through a livestream from her home in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It was the last week of Ramadan, just two months after the World Health Organization officially declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic.

Mosques and houses of worship shut down as Disla — a Latina raised Catholic in the Washington Heights neighborhood in New York City — sought to better understand the Islamic faith. That’s when she learned about ...

Easter’s message of renewal will be especially poignant this year for four U.S. congregations rebounding from disasters.

Their churches were destroyed by a tornado in Kentucky, gutted by a blaze in New York City, shattered when Hurricane Ida hit the Louisiana coast, and filled with smoke and ash by the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history. For the pastors, Easter’s promise of hope couldn’t be more timely as their resilient congregations come to terms with what happened and prepare for what’s next.

KENTUCKY

Members of Mayfield First United...

For many U.S. Christians, this weekend marks the first time since 2019 that they will gather in person on Easter Sunday, a welcome chance to celebrate one of the year’s holiest days side by side with fellow congregants.

The pandemic erupted in the country in March 2020, just ahead of Easter, forcing many churches to resort to online or televised worship. Many continued to hold virtual services last spring after a deadly winter wave of the coronavirus and as vaccination campaigns were still ramping up. But this year more churches are opening their doors for Easter services with...

When the Cathedral Church of St. Mark in Salt Lake City hosted dialogues last year on the Episcopal Church’s Sacred Ground curriculum, wrestling with issues of race and white privilege in the United States, it didn’t entirely resonate for Daniela Lee.

Lee, a student at Bexley Seabury Seminary at the University of Chicago, had been born and raised in Romania. What she needed to reckon...

Two and a half years ago, Episcopal Bishop of New York Andrew M.L. Dietsche reminded a group of clergy of the ugly history of their diocese.

Not only was slavery deeply embedded in the life and economy of colonial New York, but Episcopal churches across the state often participated in it. Church founders, churchgoers and even churches themselves had enslaved people. The abolitionist Sojourner Truth had once been enslaved by a church in the diocese. 

“The Diocese of New York played a significant, and genuinely evil, part in American slavery,” Dietsche said...

When journalist Olga M. Segura initially set out to write a book on Black Lives Matter and the Catholic Church, she intended it to be more of an overview that might prompt white Catholics to get more involved in the work of racial justice.

That was back in early 2020, when she first started writing. Then, the pandemic hit, followed soon after by nationwide protests after George Floyd died while in Minneapolis police custody.

Her book, published last April, essentially took on a new life. As she puts it: “I thought, ‘OK, it’s not about gentle accompaniment anymore...

As U.S. refugee resettlement agencies and nonprofits nationwide gear up to help Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion and war that has raged for nearly six weeks, members of faith communities have been leading the charge to welcome the displaced.

In Southern California, pastors and lay individuals are stationing themselves at the Mexico border waving Ukrainian flags and offering food, water and prayer. Around the country, other religious groups are getting ready to provide longer-term support for refugees who will have to find housing, work, health care and schooling....

Even before the family of 10 Afghan evacuees arrived in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, earlier this year, volunteers from eight local churches pitched in to prepare a home for them, painting and sanding and ripping out old carpeting. When the family arrived, the volunteers drove them to medical appointments and helped the children sign up for sports and the parents set up utilities.

But as Ramadan, Islam’s holy month of prayer and fasting, approached, the volunteers of Gettysburg’s Refugee Resettlement Partnership weren’t sure what they could do to help their new neighbors, who are...

For more than two years, Jehovah's Witnesses congregations have held their bi-weekly meetings virtually rather than at Kingdom Halls, but that is changing this week as they return to in-person worship for the first time since the start of the pandemic. 

"Over the past couple of years, it's been a challenge to maintain that closeness, so I really look forward to greeting everyone again," Randall Larson, a Jehovah's Witness who lives in Sun Prairie, said. "This has been a very exciting time when we received word that we will be going back in person. [There is] some...

Black Catholics are more likely than their white or Hispanic counterparts to say that opposing racism and sexism is essential to being a faithful Christian, according to a Pew Research Center survey released March 15.

The survey also finds that Black Catholics rely more on daily prayer and Scripture reading, engage in charismatic-style worship at Mass more often, drive longer distances to attend religious services, and are less likely to hear sermons about abortion than their white and Hispanic coreligionists.

The new study, a follow-up to Pew's February 2021 report...

When Cara Quinn became a Christian in her early 20s, she still felt like there was something missing.

Where were all the women, she wondered.

It’s not that they were missing from the pews. Women generally outnumber men when it comes to church attendance. But they never filled the pulpit. And Quinn wasn’t sure where to find them in the Bible, either. They were rarely discussed in the sermons she heard on Sunday mornings at...