(RNS) — Each week Religion News Service presents a gallery of photos of religious expression around the world. This week’s photo gallery includes Hindu serpent festivals, wildfire losses and more. 
Hindu devotees worship a statue of the serpent god, Naag, situated at the center of a pond during Naag Panchami festival, in Bhaktapur, Nepal, Monday, Aug. 21, 2023. Devotees believe that the serpent deity safeguards them from snake bites and protects them various misfortunes. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha) 
Traditional Indian wrestlers engage in a bout during Naag Panchami festival in Prayagraj, India, Monday, Aug. 21, 2023. Every year, the wrestlers offer prayers and hold bouts to mark the festival which is primarily dedicated to the worship of snakes. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh) 
A Hindu priest, face smeared with color and sacrificial blood, carries a goat and pigeons over his shoulder for sacrifice during the Deodhani festival at the Kamakhya Hindu temple in Guwahati, India, Saturday, Aug. 19, 2023. Goats and pigeons are commonly offered as sacrifice in the belief that participants receive supernatural power from goddess Kamakhya during the festival held to worship the serpent goddess. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) 
Members of the Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia gather at the Shofuso Japanese House and Garden, Saturday, Aug. 12, 2023, in Philadelphia’s West Fairmount Park to dance a traditional Bon Odori. A major feature of the Japanese Buddhist year is the late summer festival Obon, or Bon, in which people honor their ancestors with grave visits, dancing, singing, and travel to one’s hometown. Reader submitted photo by Richard Mammana 
Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, lead a rally in Managua, Nicaragua. Nicaragua’s government on Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023, declared the Jesuit religious order illegal and ordered the confiscation of all its property. (AP Photo/Alfredo Zuniga, File) 
Pakistani Christians pray after the recent attack on the Jaranwala Christian area by an angry Muslim mob, in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary) 
Nuns attend Pope Francis’ Angelus noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St.Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini) 
A man carries an icon of Mary with Jesus as a wildfire threatens Agia Paraskevi Christian Orthodox monastery in Acharnes, a suburb of northern Athens, Greece, Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023. Water-dropping planes from several European countries joined hundreds of firefighters Wednesday battling fires raging across Greece that have left 20 people dead. Major blazes were also burning in Spain’s Tenerife and in northwestern Turkey near the Greek border. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis) 
People pray as President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden meet with community members impacted by the Maui wildfires at Lahaina Civic Center, Monday, Aug. 21, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) 
Crosses honoring victims killed in a recent wildfire are posted on a fence along the Lahaina Bypass in Lahaina, Hawaii, Aug. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) 
Orthodox Christian nuns process with candles and flowers as they bring an icon of the Virgin Mary to the tomb where, it is believed, she is buried, along the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem, early Friday, Aug. 25, 2023. Every year before the Feast of the Assumption, the icon is brought from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to the tomb of the Virgin Mary to honor her Assumption. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg) Archival Photos 
Chief Tariri of the Shapra Indians of Peru, center, his wife, Irina, left, and Lorrie Anderson, of Wycliffe Bible Translators, using a shortwave radio in 1965 in a remote Amazon region of northern Peru. The Shapra people live in the midst of dense jungle some 400 miles from the base of operations of the Summer Institute of Linguistics–Wycliffe Bible Translators in Peru. At this outpost Anderson and a co-worker, Doris Cox, live and work, teaching Shapra people to read, translating books into the Shapra language, and often helping the tribespeople medically. Here Chief Tariri and his wife, Irina, wait for an important word from the base doctor that may save the life of a sick child. RNS archive photo. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society. 
In Boston, protestors demonstrate against racial violence in Birmingham, Alabama, at the city’s federal building, circa Sept. 1963. They were led by the Rev. Vernon E. Carter, pastor of All Saints Lutheran church, a congregation of the Lutheran Church in America. RNS archive photo. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society. | 
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