Pope Benedict XVI, who has announced he will resign on February 28, will retire to a monastery tucked away inside the historic walls of the Holy See: so once the new pope is elected.
At least 22 people died in a stampede as pilgrims headed home from India's giant Kumbh Mela festival, which drew a record 30 million people to the banks of the river Ganges.
Nothing illustrates better the arrival of a new wave of Islam among Roma in Bulgaria's southern town of Pazardzhik, whose imam Ahmed Mussa is on trial for spreading radical ideology.
The incoming leader of the world's Anglicans said his application to become the Archbishop of Canterbury was "a joke" and he was "just a very, very ordinary Christian".
Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims led by naked ash-covered holy men streamed into the sacred river Ganges on Monday at the start of the world's biggest religious festival.
Passions and tensions are rising in France ahead of an expected giant weekend rally against the government's plan to legalise same-sex marriage and adoption that has angered influential Catholic and Muslim groups.
The Church of England has dropped its opposition to gay clergymen in civil partnerships becoming bishops, provided the men concerned promise to remain celibate.
Addressing the faithful in his Christmas Eve midnight mass in Bethlehem on Tuesday, Latin Patriarch Fuad Twal urged "men of good will" to seek peace amid "the sufferings in the Middle East."
Thousands of Palestinians and tourists were flocking to the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Monday to mark Christmas at the site where many believe Jesus Christ was born.
Queen Elizabeth II's chaplain Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin, tipped to become one of Britain's first women bishops, said Saturday that the Church of England is struggling with "institutional racism".
Christians are the world's biggest religious group, numbering some 2.2 billion people, according to a study released Tuesday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
Before the creation of the Earth, there was only silence and darkness, only the sky and the sea until the deities Tepeu and Gucumatz created trees, animals and man -- so says the Mayan holy book.
At the same time President warned that “measures to counteract extremism should not transform into witch-hunt and shouldn’t grow into moves to counteract religion”.
Rumors have been spreading that we will have to face an apocalypse. People are getting scared and stocking up on food. All this is a groundless lie: Mufti.