Rites Around the World

The Durga Puja festival is the biggest religious event for Bengali Hindus. Hindus believe that the goddess Durga symbolises power and the triumph of good over evil.

The festival, featuring face-piercing, spirit mediums, and strict vegetarianism celebrates the local Chinese community's belief that abstinence from meat and various stimulants during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar will help them obtain good health and peace of mind.

Around 2000 people participate in the Jidai Matsuri festival which takes place every year on October 22 on the anniversary of the foundation of Kyoto. Participants dress in authentic costumes from almost every period of Japanese history and parade from the Imperial Palace to Heian Shrine.

Catholics mark All Saints Day by visiting the cemeteries and graves of deceased relatives and friends.

Diwali, or Deepavali, the annual Hindu Festival of Light, will be celebrated on Nov. 13

The Lantern Festival, which falls on February 6 this year, marks the end of the new year celebrations.

About 40 Roma ethnic people, aged between one and 57 years, were baptized into the Orthodox Christian faith with Romanians serving as godparents during a very rare mass ceremony in an attempt to strengthen their community ties with the Romanian majority. The Roma people make up the biggest ethnic minority in the European Union, most of them from countries like Romania, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. There are an estimated 10 million across Europe and one in five lives in Romania.

Christmas is a busy time of year for the choir who will sing to over 20,000 people over the Christmas period.

Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral is kicking off its 850th anniversary celebrations, which will include new bells for the medieval landmark, cast in a foundry in Normandy.