Religious Rites

Still in a daze from the crash, Donald Ashman walked over to the first body. Ashman knelt down and lifted a corner of a white blanket covering the body, placed his hand on the man's forehead and said the words he had said so many times before, almost always at a hospital: "May God Almighty have mercy upon thee, forgive thee thy sins and bring thee to everlasting life." The prayer took just a few seconds.

Every seven years since AD 301, priests from around the world have trekked to the ancient Cathedral of Etchmiadzin in Armenia to retrieve jarfuls of freshly brewed muron -- a sweet-scented holy oil stirred with what is said to be the tip of the lance driven through Jesus' side -- and carry them back to their respective dioceses.

More than 2 million Muslims from across the globe descended on Saudi Arabia over the weekend to perform the ancient rituals of the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca that is considered the spiritual pinnacle of a devout Muslim's life. As Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Hajj notes in a website on the event, the word "hajj" merely means "to set out for a place."

The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has announced that church leaders can bless the unions of same-sex couples as a matter of policy. The Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, whose diocese encompasses Los Angeles County and five other Southern California counties, made the announcement Friday during a diocesan convention in Riverside.

Speros Mantas has long known that one day he too would dive for the cross. His uncle successfully dived in Long Beach 14 years ago and caught it. His brother caught it as well, four years ago in the chilly waters of Alamitos Bay. On Saturday, Mantas, 16, got his chance to leap into the same bay at Mother's Beach as part of an age-old Greek Orthodox ceremony marking Epiphany. Tradition calls for a high-ranking priest to toss a cross into the water to mark Christ's baptism.

Some churches abandoned the practice because of the fire danger. Some responded to air quality laws. At Our Mother of Good Counsel Church, a parishioner who for years made the ashes for Ash Wednesday died in the 1980s -- and so did the parish's practice of burning fronds from the previous Palm Sunday for the centuries-old rite. So Our Mother of Good Counsel, like churches all over the country, began ordering ashes from a church supply store.

Marching under blood-spattered banners, mourners Wednesday carried coffins through streets still littered with pieces of flesh and debris, as the death toll from three consecutive days of attacks on Shiite Muslim pilgrims climbed to 188.

Worshipers filled Christianity's most revered church Saturday, lighting rows of candles, dripping hot wax on their faces and dancing in celebration of the Orthodox Easter "holy fire" ritual. Orthodox Christians believe that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher now stands where Jesus was crucified and buried, and that the fire appears spontaneously from his tomb on the eve of Easter as a message that he has not forgotten his followers.

Nearly 3,000 people, mostly Buddhists from around the world, gathered in Yorba Linda on Saturday to take part in a fiery 1,300-year-old purification ritual that organizers say has never been open to the public. The Shinnyo-en Order of Japan held the annual Saito Homa Fire Ritual Service at its temple in the 18000 block of Bastanchury Road instead of the usual site in Tokyo. "The rite's evolution toward becoming open ... has been a journey," the Rev.

Former President Boris N. Yeltsin, putting an end to Soviet practices in death as he did in life, was buried Wednesday with Russian Orthodox rites. The service marked the first time in more than a century that Russia bid a religious farewell to a deceased head of state. Former Presidents Clinton and George H. W. Bush were among the dignitaries who gathered for a memorial at central Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral, which was followed by burial at Novodevichy cemetery.