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Saint Barbara (d. c. 306 C.E.) was a Christian saint and martyr who died at Nicomedia in today's Turkey c. 306 C.E. Known in the Eastern Orthodox Church as Great Martyr Barbara, Barbara won particular fame for the horrifying fact that her death sentence by beheading...
Ho Chi Minh City, commonly known by its previous name, Saigon, is the largest and most populous city in Vietnam, situated in Southern Vietnam. The three most prevalent religions in Ho Chi Minh City are Mahayana Buddhism with Taoism and Confucianism (via ancestor worship), which are often celebrated together in...
The composition of this Virgin and Child is loosely based on the Hodegetria, one of the more powerful and enduring icon types of the Orthodox Christian church. The Virgin gestures toward the child to show him as the “way” (hodos in Greek), the source of salvation. The throne and her...
Gisela was a daughter of Henry II, Duke of Bavaria and Gisela of Burgundy. Gisela was raised very devout, most likely with bishop Wolfgang of Regensburg as her mentor and governor. She married King Stephen I of Hungary in 996 as a part of Hungary's policy of opening...
A monstrance, also known as an ostensorium (or an ostensory), is a vessel used in Roman Catholic, Old Catholic, High Church Lutheran and Anglican churches for the more convenient exhibition of some object of piety, such as the consecrated Eucharistic host during Eucharistic adoration or Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament....
The Virgin Mary, enthroned as Queen of Heaven, is surrounded by angels, some in attitudes of prayer, others playing musical instruments and singing. Twisting in his mother’s lap, the infant Christ reaches for a lily, a symbol of Mary’s purity, and clutches a goldfinch, an allusion to his...
The crucifixion of Jesus occurred in 1st-century Judea, most likely in either AD 30 or AD 33. Jesus' crucifixion is described in the four canonical gospels, referred to in the New Testament epistles, attested to by other ancient sources, and is established as a historical event confirmed by non-Christian...
Chatswood is a major business and residential district in the Lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, 10 kilometers north of the Sydney central business district. It is the administrative center of the local government area of the City of Willoughby. 15% of the...
The story from the Book of Judith revolves around Judith, a daring and beautiful widow, who is upset with her Jewish countrymen for not trusting God to deliver them from their foreign conquerors. She goes with her loyal maid to the camp of the enemy general, Holofernes, with whom she...
The Apostle John was one of the "pillars" of the Jerusalem church after Jesus' death. He was one of the original twelve apostles and is thought to be the only one to have lived into old age and not be killed for his faith. It had been...
Lindfield is a suburb on the Upper North Shore of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is 13 kilometres north-west of the Sydney Central Business District and is in the local government area of Ku-ring-gai Council. East Lindfield is a separate suburb, although they share the...
Domine, quo vadis? is a c. 1602 painting by the Italian Baroque painter Annibale Carracci (1560–1609), depicting a scene from the apocrypha Acts of Peter. It is housed in the National Gallery, London, where it is given the title Christ appearing to Saint Peter on the Appian Way. The...
Luke the Evangelist is one of the Four Evangelists—the four traditionally ascribed authors of the canonical gospels. The Early Church Fathers ascribed to him authorship of both the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, which would mean Luke contributed over a quarter of the text of...
Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country in South and Southeast Europe, located within the Balkans. Sarajevo is the capital and largest city. Bosnia and Herzegovina is bordered by Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to the...
The liberation of the apostle Peter is an event described in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 12 in which the apostle Peter is rescued from prison by an angel. Although described in a short textual passage, the tale has given rise to theological discussions and has been the subject...
In the Gospel of John, Jesus states "I am the good shepherd" in two verses, John 10:11 and 10:14. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who doesn&...
Robert Cardinal Sarah celebrating Holy Mass with Bishop of Hrodna Alaksandr Kaškievič in Minsk, close to Red Church. Robert Sarah (born 15 June 1945) is a Guinean prelate of the Catholic Church. A cardinal since 20 November 2010, he was prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline...
This miniature, cut from a book of Old Testament prophets made in Sicily, presents the first of the prophet Zechariah's eight visions, a subject rarely depicted in art. Zechariah stands on the left, next to an angel who points to a man mounting a red horse. The angel...
The portrayal of Jesus' death in John is unique among the four Gospels. It does not appear to rely on the kinds of atonement theology indicative of vicarious sacrifice (cf. Mark 10:45, Romans 3:25) but rather presents the death of Jesus as his glorification and return to...
East Anglia is a geographical area in the East of England. The area included has varied but the legally defined NUTS 2 statistical unit comprises the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, including the City of Peterborough unitary authority area. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East...
This illuminated leaf shows a painting of the baptism of Christ. At the left side of the page, John the Baptist sprinkles the water of the Jordan River on Christ’s head. The dove of the holy spirt descends from the heavens, and an angel attends at right, its wings...
The Jesuits arrived at Asuncion in 1588 and created the Jesuit reductions of Paraguay among the native Guaranis in 1609. At that time the Jesuit province of Paraguay did not correspond to the current borders. It included the current Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, a small part of Bolivia, and Brazil. Their...
Mass on the 8th anniversary of the tragedy near Smolensk. This mass took place in Warsaw, Poland. The Smolensk air disaster occurred on 10 April 2010, when a Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft of the Polish Air Force crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk, killing all 96 people on board. Free...
Giovanni Lanfranco conceived this painting as part of a series executed for the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in the Basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura (Saint Paul Outside the Walls) in Rome. Lanfranco depicts the imposing figures as if seen from below, imbuing them with a sense of...
