Heart and Soul

Founded in the 15th century on a remote archipelago in the White Sea, Solovetsky monastery (or “Solovki”) was once one of Russia’s most religious sites. But in the 20th century Solovki gained notoriety as the “Mother of Gulags” – the first and most brutal of the concentration camps of the Soviet time, a stark embodiment of repression.

With the fall of the communism in the early 1990's, the monastery was re-established though and a small group of monks were allowed to settle.

Monks and historians have worked together to keep the dual-legacy of Solovki alive, but spiritual revival on the bones of the dead has proved complicated; the Russian Orthodox Church wants to make the entire archipelago the stronghold of belief it had once been, while historians and human rights activists say that traces of Gulag are being gradually and forcibly removed.

Natalia Golysheva, whose grandfather was a Gulag prisoner, explores Solovki’s legacy. She joins pilgrims on their journey to the far-off skits, hears from local residents and speaks to the granddaughter of perhaps the most famous Gulag survivor Dmitry Likhachov asking her what Solovki represents in modern day Russia.

Is it a place of religious worship or a memorial to its most painful past, and will reconciliation ever be possible?

Produced and Presented by Natalia Golysheva (Geyser Media) for BBC World Service

At the end of a week when President Donald Trump visited European countries, immigration was one of the many issues which has made the headlines

The President used his visit to say that immigration has "changed the fabric of Europe" and that "allowing millions and millions of people to come into Europe is very, very sad.”

In God’s Word at the World’s Borders, Heart and Soul examines the passionate debate around religion and migration and how owns the biblical word when debating immigration

Photo: The Rev. Al Sharpton joins other members of an interfaith delegation of 40 religious leaders in McAllen, Texas Credit: Getty Images

Uzbekistan - the most populous country in Central Asia is, is sometimes called the country of a hundred shrines or the “second Mecca”. It is home to hundreds of well-preserved mosques, madrasas, bazaars and mausoleums, dating largely from the 9th to the 17th centuries, almost untarnished by the time.

The strict Soviet anti-religion stance couldn’t stop believers from paying respect their holy sites of pilgrimage. Neither could the Muslim Ulema who say that visiting shrines may contradict Islamic teachings.

Rustam Qobil travels to the ancient cities of Bukhara and Samarkand in his native Uzbekistan to find out if the increased interest to shrines can indeed stop radicalism.

Presenter: Rustam Qobil

Photo Credit: Festival of Silk and Spices, Bukhara

Across the United States communities are growing of people choosing to live, work and worship together.

Colm Flynn takes to the farms and fields to meet the Muslims, Christians and even a Druid who want to show their faith through a shared love of farming.

He travels to the states of New Jersey, Wisconsin and Michigan to meet the diverse groups who express their faith through getting their hands dirty.

In the summer heat as they celebrate the holy month of Ramadan, Trinka tells Colm how she hopes that by valuing Gods earth while she was alive Allah will reward her in death.

Photo credit: Michael Edwardson, head farmer at Plain Song Farm. Colm Flynn/BBC

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that the following program contains images and voices of people who have died.

From next year tourists will not be allowed to climb Uluru in the Australian outback. It comes after years of campaigning by the owners of the site, the Anangu Aborigines.

The Anangu date their origins back 60,000 years and claim a deep and ancient link between the rock and their spirituality. Climbing has violated that, they say; it's like tourists clambering over temples or sacred remains. For them the rock has played a big part in their ceremonies and rites of passage. Rebecca Henschke meets the Anangu to hear just how strong a role Uluru plays in their Dreamtime stories passed on from their ancestors which provide the basis for their spiritual lives and uncovers her own family connection to the rock.

Photo: Pamela Taylor, an Anangu elder and a traditional owner of Uluru Credit: BBC

The community of Anatevka near the Ukrainian capital Kiev has been created to especially welcome Jews from war-torn Eastern Ukraine. Construction started in 2015, and it was named after a hometown of Tevye the Dairyman, from the musical "Fiddler on the Roof". There is no requirement for the refugees who settle in Anatevka to be observant Jews. Many of them had no chance to practice their religion in what was then the atheistic Soviet Union.

Olga explores how this community interact with other Ukrainian villages nearby. As we spend time with this unique project for a permanent Jewish home for those fleeing war, we hear stories of the refugees and learn about the military actions in Eastern Ukraine that forced many to leave their homes.

Photo: Building the Cheder Credit: BBC

This is a story of a community trying to heal, but a warning; there are descriptions of abuse in this programme that may be upsetting.

Pope Francis is refusing to bow to pressure to apologise to Canada's indigenous people for the Catholic church's abuse of thousands of children

For more than 100 years First Nations, Metis and Inuit children were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to these church-run boarding schools. Many were beaten, starved and sexually abused. They were forbidden from speaking their native languages and had their culture stripped from them. Thousands died, far away from their families.

Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has recommended that the Pope come to Canada to make an apology - similar to the one made to Irish victims of abuse. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has also asked the Pope to do so. But Francis has simply said that he cannot 'personally respond'.

Why won't Pope Francis make the same apology to Canada's indigenous people that has been made to other victims? And what would an apology from the Catholic Church mean to indigenous people of faith?

Produced and Presented by Jennifer Chevalier for BBC World Service

Photo: Cross Lake School. Credit: Library and Archives Canada - by permission

The following programme tells the story of a mass shooting in a small church in Sutherland Springs Texas and how it affected the faith of the community and the church's pastor Frank Pomeroy. A warning, there are graphic and potentially upsetting references to the shooting throughout the programme.

As a gun man calmly walked into his church during its normal Sunday service and shot dead 26 of his parishioners, including his 14 year old daughter, Pastor Frank Pomeroy, was absent, miles away from his flock on a course to get a gun license, so he could teach teenagers how to handle firearms responsibly.

Six months on, Pastor Frank talks of how this tragedy has affected his faith, and how the community have been able to keep going. He also tells Colm Flynn about how, as he stands in front of his flock to preach, he has his own concealed weapon while preaching, and how the Bible justifies both him and his congregation being armed.

Photo: Memorial to the victims of First Baptist Church, Sutherland Springs, Texas/Credit: BBC

Morocco's Jewish community was once the biggest in the Muslim world. More than a quarter of a million Jews called the North African country home. Most Moroccan Jews left after the establishment of Israel in 1940s and 50s. The understanding between the two religious communities, who used to live side by side, has slowly been forgotten.

Young people especially feel a growing disconnect with the communities of the past. Many Muslim Moroccan's are bringing a middle eastern Islam to the country; different to Morocco's traditionally Sufi inspired moderate version of the faith

Presenter/Producer: Nina Robinson

Singer - Vanessa Paloma, Guitar - Ahmed Guendouz , Lute - Driss Nigra

Photo credit: Moroccan Jewish man: FADEL SENNA/AFP/Getty Images

Marie-Louise Muir tells the story of the Nun Study; a pioneering study, started in America in the 1980s, which brought a young epidemiologist together with a group of Catholic Sisters to examine the mysteries of ageing and Alzheimer’s.

In 1986 Dr David Snowdon approached the sisters at the convent of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Minnesota. An order of Catholic sisters with their uniform life-styles were perfect for an examination of the ageing process. It was the beginning of a study which experts still consider to be one of the most innovative efforts to answer questions about who gets Alzheimer's disease and why.

A breakthrough came when the Snowdon team came across a filing cabinet full of diaries written by the sisters when they’d entered the order. The team worked out that those sisters who used more complex sentences and ideas were less likely to develop Alzheimer’s later on. As they died, the brain of each sister was analysed for further information and these samples are now stored at the University of Minnesota along with the brains of other sisters who have continued to participate in this extraordinary longitudinal study. We hear the voices of some of the original Snowdon team as well as neurologists working in the field of Alzheimer’s and some of the nuns themselves.

Image: Two nuns walk through a forest, Credit: Getty Images