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ITALY
Gracing the wall of the Santa Maria delle Grazie convent in Milan since 1498, Leonardo da Vinci's mural of the Last Supper invites viewers to contemplate how the Twelve Apostles felt in the moment after Christ predicted that one of them would prove a traitor. -
ISRAEL
Franciscan priest Fergus Clarke gazes at the Tomb of Christ in Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The tomb's emptiness echoes the Apostles' message: Jesus rose from the dead. -
ISRAEL
The Western Wall is all that remains of Jerusalem's Second Temple, destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70. Jews consider the site sacred, as do many Christians. Pilgrims often leave handwritten prayers stuffed into the chinks. -
ISRAEL
Kneeling outside the Church of the Beatitudes, Iryna Lebedeva traveled all the way from Ukraine to worship on the hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee where Jesus is believed to have preached his Sermon on the Mount. His message elevated those who seem weakest in the world's eyes: the poor and grieving, the truth seekers, innocents, and peacemakers. -
ISRAEL
Each Friday, Roman Catholics remember Christ's final hours with a procession between the stations of the cross along the Via Dolorosa ("way of grief") in Jerusalem's Old City. The route is noisy and bustling these days, so Franciscan friar René Peter Walke carries a loudspeaker. -
ISRAEL
The Apostles suffered, often gruesomely, for spreading their radical views. James the Greater was beheaded at the behest of King Herod Agrippa I. James the Lesser was likely clubbed to death. They are remembered in the Armenian Cathedral of St. James in Jerusalem, where a small shrine marks the purported burial place of James the Greater's head. -
ISRAEL
Many of the nearly 3.5 million tourists who flocked to Israel in 2010 went to visit places linked with Christ's life, such as the Sea of Galilee. Its shores are where the Gospels say Jesus met the four fishermen—Peter, Andrew, James the Greater, and John—who became his first disciples and the nucleus of his Twelve Apostles. -
SPAIN
Wending across northern Spain, the Way of St. James has brought pilgrims to James the Greater's presumed tomb in Santiago de Compostela since medieval times. About 200,000 made the trek last year. Some collect stamps for church-issued "passports" as a record of how far they've walked. For others, progress is marked by spiritual transformation. -
INDIA
The small bone enthroned in this glass case is said to be a section of the forearm of the Apostle Thomas. It is displayed at a shrine in Cranganore in the Indian state of Kerala, near where Thomas is believed to have first entered the country on his missionary journey. -
INDIA
India’s 27 million Christians credit the Apostle Thomas with bringing Jesus' message there—and dying for it. Adhering to a faith that challenges the Hindu caste system can still be risky: In 2008 extreme nationalists killed at least 60 Christians and displaced some 60,000 in Odisha state. Worshippers there still gather, but less openly, in a pastor’s home (above). -
INDIA
The scar on 19-year-old Anil Kuldeep’s thigh recalls the eight-hour beating he endured for refusing to renounce his Christian faith when Hindu extremists attacked his village in 2008. Now at a makeshift camp in Odisha, he wants to return to school but can’t afford the tuition. -
INDIA
In the apostolic tradition of laying hands on the sick, the Reverend Debendra Singh prays for Christian refugees in Odisha, India. Some 60 families fled to these abandoned buildings after a 2008 attack on their village. "Now," he says, "they have nothing except the Lord." -
ITALY
On their knees to respect where Jesus may have set foot, penitent Catholics ascend Rome's Scala Santa ("holy stairs"), said to have been moved from Pontius Pilate's palace in Jerusalem. One woman peers at a bloodstain beneath the wood that covers the marble steps. -
ITALY
Visitors kneel before the stone crypt dedicated to the Apostle Paul at the papal basilica of St. Paul Outside-the-Walls in Vatican City. The basilica was reconstructed in the 19th century after a fire destroyed the original fourth-century building. -
ITALY
The reverent touch of countless pilgrims has worn smooth the toes of the Apostle Peter's bronze likeness in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The Bible portrays Peter as a leader among the Twelve Apostles; Catholics call him the first pope. -
Photograph by Lynn Johnson
By kind permission of the Procuratoria of St. Mark—VeniceITALY
St. Mark's Basilica in Venice is dedicated to the author of the second Gospel, considered apostolic for his role in helping the original Twelve spread Christianity. Although he is presumed to have died in Egypt, his remains are said to have been stolen from an Alexandria church by Venetian merchants in 828. They once rested in this marble crypt but are now held in a more elaborately decorated tomb on the basilica's main level. -
FRANCE
A medieval legend says that Mary Magdalene spent her last years in France, praying in the cave of Sainte-Baume. Nuns at the nearby Dominican convent, who view Mary as a role model, bless their grounds with a procession that features a piece of bone said to be hers. -
FRANCE
Believing this to be the skull of Mary Magdalene when it was found in the 1200s, French Catholics encased it in gold, evoking a luminous specter of the woman the Bible describes as one of Christ's most loyal followers. It is displayed at a basilica in St.-Maximin-la-Ste.-Baume. -
FRANCE
A trip to Provence to bask in the sight of Mary Magdalene's skull was "a dream vacation" for Parvin Tavakol Olofsson. Born a Muslim in Iran, she learned about Christianity after moving to Sweden. She says she feels a deep connection to this female disciple, whose story is often neglected: "In my home country all women are invisible in the shadow of power."
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