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The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, the holiest Christian site

Christianity (/ˌkrɪst(ʃ)iˈænɪti/) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.4 billion followers, comprising around 31.2% of the world population. Its adherents, known as Christians, are estimated to make up a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories. Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible (called the Old Testament in Christianity) and chronicled in the New Testament.

Christianity remains culturally diverse in its Western and Eastern branches, and doctrinally diverse concerning justification and the nature of salvation, ecclesiology, ordination, and Christology. The creeds of various Christian denominations generally hold in common Jesus as the Son of God—the Logos incarnated—who ministered, suffered, and died on a cross, but rose from the dead for the salvation of humankind; and referred to as the gospel, meaning the "good news". The four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John describe Jesus's life and teachings, with the Old Testament as the gospels' respected background.

The six major branches of Christianity are Roman Catholicism (1.3 billion people), Protestantism (1.17 billion), Eastern Orthodoxy (230 million), Oriental Orthodoxy (60 million), Restorationism (35 million), and the Church of the East (600 thousand). Smaller church communities number in the thousands despite efforts toward unity (ecumenism). In the West, Christianity remains the dominant religion even with a decline in adherence, with about 70% of that population identifying as Christian. Christianity is growing in Africa and Asia, the world's most populous continents. Christians remain greatly persecuted in many regions of the world, particularly in the Middle East, North Africa, East Asia, and South Asia. (Full article...)

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Double-headed eagle on an altar cloth, believed to have belonged to Paul Tagaris, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Paul Palaiologos Tagaris (Greek: Παῦλος Παλαιολόγος Τάγαρις, c. 1320/1340 – after 1394) was a Byzantine Greek monk and impostor. A scion of the Tagaris family, Paul also claimed a somewhat dubious connection with the Palaiologos dynasty that ruled the Byzantine Empire at the time. He fled his marriage as a teenager and became a monk, but soon his fraudulent practices embroiled him in scandal. Fleeing Constantinople, he traveled widely, from Palestine to Persia and Georgia and eventually, via Ukraine and Hungary to Italy, Latin Greece, Cyprus and France.

During his long and tumultuous career, Paul was appointed an Orthodox bishop, sold ordinations to ecclesiastical offices, pretended to be the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, switched from Greek Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism and back again, supported both the See of Rome and the Avignon anti-popes in the Western Schism, and managed to be named Latin Patriarch of Constantinople. In the end, his deceptions unmasked, he returned to Constantinople, where he repented and confessed his sins before a synod in 1394. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various Christianity-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1A 'Jesus Saves' neon cross sign outside of a Protestant church in New York City (from Salvation in Christianity)
Image 2The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a holy site in Jerusalem believed by most Christians to encompass the tomb of Jesus and the site of his crucifixion and resurrection. (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 3Renaissance painting by Jerónimo Cosida depicting Jesus as a triple deity Inner text: The Father is God; the Son is God; the Holy Spirit is God (from Trinity)
Image 4The Glory of Saint Nicholas, by António Manuel da Fonseca; Nicholas of Myra, a participant in the First Council of Nicaea, achieves the beatific vision in the shape of the Holy Trinity. (from Trinity)
Image 5Representation of the Trinity in the form of the mercy seat (epitaph from 1549) (from Trinity)
Image 6A Greek fresco of Athanasius of Alexandria, the chief architect of the Nicene Creed, formulated at Nicaea (from Trinity)
Image 7Jesus' Farewell Discourse to his eleven remaining disciples after the Last Supper, from the Maestà by Duccio (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 813th-century depiction of the Trinity from a Roman de la Rose manuscript (from Trinity)
Image 9Depictions of the Resurrection of Jesus are central to Christian art (Resurrection of Christ by Raphael, 1499–1502). (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 10Nativity at Night, by Geertgen tot Sint Jans, c. 1490 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 11The Adoration of the Trinity by Albrecht Dürer (1511)
From top to bottom: Holy Spirit (dove), God the Father and Christ on the cross (from Trinity)
Image 12A depiction of the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, at which the Deity of Christ was declared orthodox and Arianism condemned (from Trinity)
Image 13The Good Samaritan is a painting by James Tissot. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the parables of Jesus. (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 14The Holy Trinity in an angelic glory over a landscape, by Lucas Cranach the Elder (d. 1553) (from Trinity)
Image 15Russian icon of the Old Testament Trinity by Andrei Rublev, between 1408 and 1425 (from Trinity)
Image 16Jesus healing the paralytic in The Pool by Palma il Giovane, 1592 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 17A Gospel of John, 1056 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 18First page of Mark, by Sargis Pitsak (14th century): "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God". (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 19A compact diagram of the Trinity, known as the "Shield of Trinity". The Shield is generally not intended to be a schematic diagram of the structure of God, but it presents a series of statements about the correlation between the persons of the Trinity. (from Trinity)
Image 20The "Heavenly Trinity" joined to the "Earthly Trinity" through the Incarnation of the Son–The Heavenly and Earthly Trinities by Murillo (c. 1677) (from Trinity)
Image 21The Baptism of Christ, by Piero della Francesca, 15th century (from Trinity)
Image 22Atypical depiction The Son is identified by a lamb, the Father an Eye of Providence, and the Spirit a dove; the painting is by Fridolin Leiber (d. 1912). (from Trinity)
Image 23The Father, The Holy Spirit, and Christ crucified, depicted in a Welsh manuscript c. 1390–1400 (from Trinity)
Image 24Pope Clement I prays to the Trinity, in a typical post-Renaissance depiction by Gianbattista Tiepolo (d. 1770) (from Trinity)
Image 25God the Father (top), the Holy Spirit (a dove), and the child Jesus, painting by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (d. 1682) (from Trinity)
Image 26The Communion of the Apostles, by Luca Signorelli, 1512 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 27Detail of the earliest known artwork of the Trinity, the Dogmatic or Trinity Sarcophagus, c. 350 (Vatican Museums)
Three similar figures, representing the Trinity, are involved in the creation of Eve, whose much smaller figure is cut off at lower right; to her right, Adam lies on the ground (from Trinity)
Image 28God in the person of the Son confronts Adam and Eve, by Master Bertram (d. c. 1415) (from Trinity)
Image 29Depiction of Trinity from Saint Denis Basilica in Paris (12th century) (from Trinity)
Image 30God the Father (top), and the Holy Spirit (represented by a dove) depicted above Jesus Painting by Francesco Albani (d. 1660) (from Trinity)

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Flagship Temple of La Luz del Mundo Church

The Iglesia del Dios Vivo, Columna y Apoyo de la Verdad, La Luz del Mundo (Spanish: [iˈɣlesja ðel ˈdjos ˈβiβo koˈlumnaj aˈpoʝo ðe la βeɾˈðað la ˈlus ðel ˈmundo]; English: "Church of the Living God, Pillar and Ground of the Truth, The Light of the World")—or simply La Luz del Mundo (LLDM)—is a nontrinitarian Christian denomination in the Restorationist tradition, with international headquarters in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. La Luz del Mundo practices a form of Restorationist theology centered on three leaders: Aarón—born Eusebio—Joaquín González (1896–1964), Samuel Joaquín Flores (1937–2014), and Naasón Joaquín García (born 1969), who are regarded by the church as modern-day apostles of Jesus Christ.

La Luz del Mundo was founded in 1926 during the Mexican Cristero War, a struggle between the secular, anti-clerical government and Catholic rebels. The conflict centered in the west-central states like Jalisco, where Aarón Joaquín focused his missionary efforts. Given the environment of the time, the Church remained a small missionary endeavor until 1934, when it built its first temple. Thereafter, it continued to grow and expand, interrupted by an internal schism in 1942. Aarón Joaquín was succeeded by his son Samuel upon his death, who was in turn succeeded by his own son Naasón upon his death. The Church is present in more than 50 countries and has claimed to have between 1 and 5 million adherents worldwide. (Full article...)

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The Pauline epistles, Epistles of Paul, or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen New Testament books which have the name Paul (Παῦλος) as the first word, hence claiming authorship by Paul the Apostle. Among these letters are some of the earliest extant Christian documents. They provide an insight into the beliefs and controversies of early Christianity and as part of the canon of the New Testament they are foundational texts for both Christian theology and ethics.

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