Throughout history, solar eclipses have had profound impact on adherents of various religions around the world. They were viewed as messages from God or spiritual forces, inducing emotions ranging from dread to wonder.
Ahead of the total solar eclipse that will follow a long path over North America on Monday, here's a look at how several of the world's major religions have responded to such eclipses over the centuries and in modern times.
In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, it is believed that the energy of positive and negative actions is multiplied during major astronomical events such as a solar eclipse.
According to the late Lama Zopa Rinpoche with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, both lunar and solar eclipses are auspicious days for spiritual practice. He has said that the merit — which represents the positive karmic results of good intentions and actions — generated on lunar eclipses is multiplied by 700,000 and on solar eclipses by 100 million. Some of the recommended spiritual activities on these days include chanting mantras and sutras.
Some Christians have believed that an eclipse portends the coming of the “end times” that will precede Christ’s return to Earth as prophesized at various points in the Bible. One such passage is in the second chapter of Acts: “The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.”
There also has been a persisting belief among some Christians that an eclipse occurred during the crucifixion because three of the Bible’s four Gospels mention a three-hour period of darkness as Jesus died.
“It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining,” says Luke 23:44.
It’s been noted that a three-hour period of darkness doesn’t suggest a solar eclipse, which produces only a few minutes of darkness.
But a recent commentary on ChurchLeaders.com — a website supported by numerous prominent evangelical pastors — said the darkness depicted in the three Gospels “represents a profound spiritual transition.”
“The temporary obscuring of the sun, juxtaposed with the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus, offers a powerful metaphor for the transient nature of despair and the eternal promise of salvation and rebirth,” the commentary says.
The origin of eclipses in Hinduism is explained in ancient legends known as puranas. In one legend, the devas and asuras, who symbolized good and evil respectively, churned the ocean to receive the nectar of eternal life. As one of the asuras, Svarbhanu, posed as a deva to receive the nectar, the Sun god (Surya) and Moon god (Chandra) alerted Mohini, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, who then used a discus to behead Svarbhanu.
But because the asura had already consumed a portion of the nectar, his immortal but detached head and body lived on under the names Rahu and Ketu. Legend has it that Rahu occasionally swallows the sun and the moon because of the gods’ part in his misery, causing solar and lunar eclipses.
Hindus generally regard a solar or lunar eclipse as a bad omen. Some observe fasts before and many do not eat during the period of the eclipse. Observant Hindus ritually bathe to cleanse themselves during the first and final phases of an eclipse. Some also offer prayers to ancestors. Most temples are closed for the duration of the eclipse. Devotees gather for prayers along pilgrimage sites near holy rivers during the onset of an eclipse. The event is considered to be a good time for prayer, meditation and chanting of mantras — all believed to ward off evil.
In Islam, a solar eclipse is a time to turn to God and pray. The eclipse prayer is based on narrations of sayings and actions of Prophet Muhammad.
Kaiser Aslam, Muslim chaplain at the Center for Islamic Life at Rutgers University, said one narration cited the prophet as saying: “The sun and the moon are two signs amongst the signs of Allah and they do not eclipse because of the death of someone. ... Whenever you see these eclipses pray and invoke (Allah).”
The story was that “after the death of the Prophet Muhammad’s son, Ibrahim, his companions tried to comfort him by saying that the sun eclipsed due to the greatness of the loss,” Aslam said. “The Prophet corrected them by reminding them that the sun and moon are signs of God and to not add any superstitions as to why an eclipse happens.”
On April 8, Aslam will lead the “kusuf” prayer on campus. Customarily, there's a brief sermon after the prayer to explain the lessons behind it and dispel any superstitions around it, he added.
“It is a beautiful and meaningful prayer that emphasizes our relationship with God’s creation, making sure to give our devotion to God, instead of incidental occurrences in God’s creation,” Aslam said.
Mahmoud Alhawary, an official with Al-Azhar’s Islamic Research Academy in Cairo, said it’s better for the eclipse prayer to be performed in congregation at the mosque, but that Muslims may also pray individually elsewhere.
The wisdom “is for the individual to seek refuge in God, requesting the lifting of this affliction," Alhawary said. “People should know that the occurrences of the whole universe are in God’s hands.”
The Talmud — the collection of writings compiled more than 1,500 years ago that constitute Jewish religious law — offers specific blessings for many natural phenomena, but not for eclipses. Instead, it depicts an eclipse as “an ill omen for the world.”
On Chabad.org — a website serving an Orthodox Jewish audience — Chicago-based Rabbi Menachem Posner sought to view the Talmud passage in a modern context, given the consensus that eclipses are natural events that can be predicted centuries in advance.
“Eclipses should be opportunities to increase in prayer and introspection — as opposed to prompting joyous blessings,” Posner wrote. “It is a sign that we really could and should be doing better.”
Writing in early March for the Orthodox Jewish education organization Aish, Rabbi Mordechai Becher noted that Judaism has longstanding interconnections with astronomy. He said there are three craters on the moon named after medieval rabbis with expertise in astronomy.
As for eclipses, Becher — an instructor at Yeshiva University — suggested they were made possible by God for a profound reason.
“He created a system that would remind us regularly that our choices can create darkness, even at times when there should be light,” he wrote. “Our free will choices can create a barrier between us and the Divine light, but can also allow Divine light to be seen here.”
Looking at a solar eclipse without glasses can be dangerous, here’s what to know.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
FILE - Pedestrians walk near Sultan Ahmed mosque during a partial solar eclipse in Istanbul, Turkey, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. Throughout history, solar eclipses have had profound impact on adherents of various religions around the world. They were viewed as messages from God or spiritual forces, inducing emotions ranging from dread to wonder. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel, File)
FILE - A partial solar eclipse is seen behind a cross on the steeple of the St. George church, in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, June 21, 2020. Throughout history, solar eclipses have had profound impact on adherents of various religions around the world. They were viewed as messages from God or spiritual forces, inducing emotions ranging from dread to wonder. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)
LYPIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago, it also provided physical refuge from the horrors outside.
Almost 100 residents sheltered in a basement chapel at the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary while Russian troops occupied the village in March 2022 as they closed in on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, 40 miles (60 kilometers) to the east.
“The fighting was right here,” the Rev. Hennadii Kharkivskyi said. He pointed to the churchyard, where a memorial stone commemorates six Ukrainian soldiers killed in the battle for Lypivka.
“They were injured and then the Russians came and shot each one, finished them off,” he said.
The two-week Russian occupation left the village shattered and the church itself — a modern replacement for an older structure — damaged while still under construction. It’s one of 129 war-damaged Ukrainian religious sites recorded by UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural organization.
“It’s solid concrete,” the priest said. “But it was pierced easily” by Russian shells, which blasted holes in the church and left a wall inside pockmarked with shrapnel scars. At the bottom of the basement staircase, a black scorch mark shows where a grenade was lobbed down.
But within weeks, workers were starting to repair the damage and work to finish the solid building topped by red domes that towers over the village, with its scarred and damaged buildings, blooming fruit trees and fields that the Russians left littered with land mines.
For many of those involved — including a tenacious priest, a wealthy philanthropist, a famous artist and a team of craftspeople — rebuilding this church plays a part in Ukraine's struggle for culture, identity and its very existence. The building, a striking fusion of the ancient and the modern, reflects a country determined to express its soul even in wartime.
The building's austere exterior masks a blaze of color inside. The vibrant red, blue, orange and gold panels decorating walls and ceiling are the work of Anatoliy Kryvolap, an artist whose bold, modernist images of saints and angels make this church unique in Ukraine.
The 77-year-old Kryvolap, whose abstract paintings sell for tens of thousands of dollars at auction, said that he wanted to eschew the severe-looking icons he’d seen in many Orthodox churches.
“It seems to me that going to church to meet God should be a celebration,” he said.
There has been a church on this site for more than 300 years. An earlier building was destroyed by shelling during World War II. The small wooden church that replaced it was put to more workaday uses in Soviet times, when religion was suppressed.
Kharkivskyi reopened the parish in 1992 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and set about rebuilding the church, spiritually and physically, with funding from Bohdan Batrukh, a Ukrainian film producer and distributor.
Work stopped when Russian troops launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Moscow's forces reached the fringes of Kyiv before being driven back. Lypivka was liberated by the start of April.
Since then, fighting has been concentrated in the east and south of Ukraine, though aerial attacks with rockets, missiles and drones are a constant threat across the country.
By May 2022, workers had resumed work on the church. It has been slow going. Millions of Ukrainians fled the country when war erupted, including builders and craftspeople. Hundreds of thousands of others have joined the military.
Inside the church, a tower of wooden scaffolding climbs up to the dome, where a red and gold image of Christ raises a hand in blessing
For now, services take place in the smaller basement, where the priest, in white and gold robes, recently conducted a service for a couple of dozen parishioners as the smell of incense wafted through the candlelit room.
He is expecting a large crowd for Easter, which falls on Sunday. Eastern Orthodox Christians usually celebrate Easter later than Catholic and Protestant churches, because they use a different method of calculating the date for the holy day that marks Christ’s resurrection.
A majority of Ukrainians identify as Orthodox Christians, though the church is divided. Many belong to the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, with which the Lypivka church is affiliated. The rival Ukrainian Orthodox Church was loyal to the patriarch in Moscow until splitting from Russia after the 2022 invasion and is viewed with suspicion by many Ukrainians.
Kharkivskyi says the size of his congregation has remained stable even though the population of the village has shrunk dramatically since the war began. In tough times, he says, people turn to religion.
“Like people say: ‘Air raid alert — go see God,’” the priest said wryly.
Liudmyla Havryliuk, who has a summer home in Lypivka, found herself drawn back to the village and its church even before the fighting stopped. When Russia invaded, she drove to Poland with her daughters, then 16 and 18 years old. But within weeks she came back to the village she loves, still besieged by the Russians.
The family hunkered down in their home, cooking on firewood, drawing water from a well, sometimes under Russian fire. Havryliuk said that when they saw Russian helicopters, they held hands and prayed.
“Not prayer in strict order, like in the book,” she said. “It was from my heart, from my soul, about what should we do? How can I save myself and especially my daughters?”
She goes to Lypivka’s church regularly, saying it’s a “place you can shelter mentally, within yourself.”
As Ukraine marks its third Easter at war, the church is nearing completion. Only a few of Kryvolap’s interior panels remain to be installed. He said that the shell holes will be left unrepaired as a reminder to future generations.
“(It’s) so that they will know what kind of ‘brothers’ we have, that these are just fascists,” he said, referring to the Russians.
“We are Orthodox, just like them, but destroying churches is something inhumane.”
Vasilisa Stepanenko and Yehor Konovalov contributed to this story.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Christian Orthodox priest Hennadii Kharkivskyi leads a service at the chapel basement of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Supervisor Olena Trykoz works at the under construction new Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Christian Orthodox murals of the under construction new Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary are seen in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
An Ukrainian flag waves next to the old, right, and new Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Flowers and a helmet rest at the memorial stone that commemorates the death of six Ukrainian soldiers killed by Russians, in the yard of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Christian Orthodox priest Hennadii Kharkivskyi leads a service at the chapel basement of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A builder works at the new Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary under construction in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A builder works at the new Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary under construction in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Local resident Liudmyla Havryliuk stands next to a memorial stone that commemorates six Ukrainian soldiers killed by Russians, in the yard of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Christian Orthodox priest Hennadii Kharkivskyi leads a service at the chapel basement of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A black scorch mark shows where a grenade was lobbed down at the entrance of the chapel basement of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A Christian Orthodox woman attends a service at the chapel basement of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Christian Orthodox priest Hennadii Kharkivskyi leads a service at the chapel basement of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Christian Orthodox worshippers leave the chapel basement after attending a service at the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
