title: Saint Peter

text: Pope Clement I (d. 99), in his "Letter to the Corinthians" (Chapter 5), written c. 80–98, speaks of Peter's martyrdom in the following terms: "Let us take the noble examples of our own generation. Through jealousy and envy the greatest and most just pillars of the Church were persecuted, and came even unto death. …Peter, through unjust envy, endured not one or two but many labours, and at last, having delivered his testimony, departed unto the place of glory due to him."


title: Saint Peter

text: The apocryphal Acts of Peter (2nd cent.) (Vercelli Acts XXXV) is the source for the tradition about the famous Latin phrase "Quo vadis, Domine?" (in Greek: ), which means "Where are you going, Lord?". According to the story, Peter, fleeing Rome to avoid execution meets the risen Jesus. In the Latin translation, Peter asks Jesus, "Quo vadis?" He replies, ""Romam eo iterum crucifigi"" ("I am going to Rome to be crucified again"). Peter then gains the courage to continue his ministry and returns to the city, where he is martyred. This story is commemorated in an Annibale Carracci painting. The Church of Quo Vadis, near the Catacombs of Saint Callistus, contains a stone in which Jesus' footprints from this event are supposedly preserved, though this was apparently an "ex-voto" from a pilgrim, and indeed a copy of the original housed in the Basilica of St Sebastian.


title: Saint Peter

text: The death of Peter is attested to by Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 240) at the end of the 2nd century in his "Prescription Against Heretics", noting that Peter endured a passion like his Lord's. In his work "Scorpiace 15", he also speaks of Peter's crucifixion: "The budding faith Nero first made bloody in Rome. There Peter was girded by another, since he was bound to the cross."


title: Saint Peter

text: Origen (184–253) in his "Commentary on the Book of Genesis III", quoted by Eusebius of Caesaria in his "Ecclesiastical History (III, 1)", said: "Peter was crucified at Rome with his head downwards, as he himself had desired to suffer." The Cross of St. Peter inverts the Latin cross based on this refusal, and on his claim of being unworthy to die the same way as his Saviour.


title: Saint Peter

text: Peter of Alexandria (d. 311), who was bishop of Alexandria and died around AD 311, wrote an epistle "on Penance", in which he says: "Peter, the first of the apostles, having been often apprehended and thrown into prison, and treated with ignominy, was last of all crucified at Rome."


title: Saint Peter

text: Jerome (327–420) wrote that "at Nero's hands Peter received the crown of martyrdom being nailed to the cross with his head towards the ground and his feet raised on high, asserting that he was unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as his Lord."


title: Saint Peter

text: Catholic tradition holds that Peter's inverted crucifixion occurred in the gardens of Nero, with the burial in Saint Peter's tomb nearby.


title: Saint Peter

text: Caius in his "Disputation Against Proclus" (A.D. 198), preserved in part by Eusebius, relates this of the places in which the remains of the apostles Peter and Paul were deposited: "I can point out the trophies of the apostles. For if you are willing to go to the Vatican or to the Ostian Way, you will find the trophies of those who founded this Church."


title: Saint Peter

text: According to Jerome, in his work "De Viris Illustribus" (A.D. 392), "Peter was buried at Rome in the Vatican near the triumphal way where he is venerated by the whole world."


title: Saint Peter

text: In the early 4th century, the Emperor Constantine I decided to honour Peter with a large basilica. Because the precise location of Peter's burial was so firmly fixed in the belief of the Christians of Rome, the church to house the basilica had to be erected on a site that was not convenient to construction. The slope of the Vatican Hill had to be excavated, even though the church could much more easily have been built on level ground only slightly to the south. There were also moral and legal issues, such as demolishing a cemetery to make room for the building. The focal point of the Basilica, both in its original form and in its later complete reconstruction, is the altar located over what is said to be the point of Peter's burial.


title: Saint Peter

text: According to a letter quoted by Bede, Pope Vitalian sent a cross containing filings said to be from Peter's chains to the queen of Oswy, Anglo-Saxon King of Northumbria in 665, as well as unspecified relics of the saint to the king. The skull of Saint Peter is claimed to reside in the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran since at least the ninth century, alongside the skull of Saint Paul.


title: Saint Peter

text: In 1950, human bones were found buried underneath the altar of St. Peter's Basilica. The bones have been claimed by many to have been those of Peter. An attempt to contradict these claims was made in 1953 by the excavation of what some believe to be Saint Peter's tomb in Jerusalem. However along with this supposed tomb in Jerusalem bearing his previous name Simon (but not Peter), tombs bearing the names of Jesus, Mary, James, John, and the rest of the apostles were also found at the same excavation—though all these names were very common among Jews at the time.


title: Saint Peter

text: In the 1960s, items from the excavations beneath St Peter's Basilica were re-examined, and the bones of a male person were identified. A forensic examination found them to be a male of about 61 years of age from the 1st century. This caused Pope Paul VI in 1968 to announce them most likely to be the relics of Apostle Peter. On 24 November 2013, Pope Francis presented part of the relics, consisting of bone fragments, for the first time in public during a Mass celebrated in St. Peter's Square. On 2 July 2019, it was announced that Pope Francis had transferred nine of these bone fragments within a bronze reliquary to Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. Bartholomew, who serves as head of the Eastern Orthodox Christian church, described the gesture as "brave and bold." Pope Francis has said his decision was born "out of prayer" and intended as a sign of the ongoing work towards communion between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. The majority of Saint Peter's remains, however, are still preserved in Rome, under the high altar of St. Peter's Basilica.


title: Saint Peter

text: Church tradition ascribes the epistles First and Second Peter to the Apostle Peter, as does the text of Second Peter itself, an attribution rejected by scholarship. First Peter says the author is in "Babylon", which has been held to be a coded reference to Rome. Early Church tradition reports that Peter wrote from Rome. Eusebius of Caesarea states:


title: Saint Peter

text: If the reference is to Rome, it is the only biblical reference to Peter being there. Many scholars regard both First and Second Peter as not having been authored by him, partly because other parts of the Acts of the Apostles seem to describe Peter as an illiterate fisherman.


title: Saint Peter

text: Most Biblical scholars believe that "Babylon" is a metaphor for the pagan Roman Empire at the time it persecuted Christians, before the Edict of Milan in 313: perhaps specifically referencing some aspect of Rome's rule (brutality, greed, paganism). Although some scholars recognize that Babylon is a metaphor for Rome, they also claim that Babylon represents more than the Roman city of the first century. According to Craig Koester "the whore [of Babylon] is Rome, yet more than Rome". It "is the Roman imperial world, which in turn represents the world alienated from God".


title: Saint Peter

text: At that time in history, the ancient city of Babylon was no longer of any importance. E.g., Strabo wrote, "The greater part of Babylon is so deserted that one would not hesitate to say ... the Great City is a great desert."


title: Saint Peter

text: Another theory is that "Babylon" refers to the Babylon in Egypt that was an important fortress city in Egypt, just north of today's Cairo and this, combined with the "greetings from Mark" (1 Peter 5:13), who may be Mark the Evangelist, regarded as the founder of the Church of Alexandria (Egypt), has led some scholars to regard the First Peter epistle as having been written in Egypt.


title: Saint Peter

text: Some church historians consider Peter and Paul to have been martyred under the reign of Nero, around AD 65 after the Great Fire of Rome. Currently, most Catholic scholars, and many scholars in general, hold the view that Peter was martyred in Rome under Nero.


title: Saint Peter

text: While accepting that Peter came to Rome and was martyred there, there is no historical evidence that he held episcopal office there. According to two extensive studies published by the German philologist in 2009 and 2013 respectively, "there is not a single piece of reliable literary evidence (and no archaeological evidence either) that Peter ever was in Rome."


title: Saint Peter

text: Clement of Rome's First Letter, a document that has been dated from the 90s to the 120s, is one of the earliest sources adduced in support of Peter's stay in Rome, but Zwierlein questions the text's authenticity and whether it has any knowledge about Peter's life beyond what is contained in the New Testament Acts of the Apostles. The letter also does not mention any particular place, only saying: "Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labours and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him" (ch. 5).


title: Saint Peter

text: A letter to the Romans attributed to Ignatius of Antioch might imply that Peter and Paul had special authority over the Roman church, telling the Roman Christians: "I do not command you, as Peter and Paul did" (ch. 4), although Zwierlein says he could be simply referring to the Epistles of the Apostles, or their mission work in the city, not a special authority given or bestowed. Zwierlein questions the authenticity of this document and its traditional dating to c. 105–10, saying it may date from the final decades of the 2nd century instead of from the beginning.


title: Saint Peter

text: The ancient historian Josephus describes how Roman soldiers would amuse themselves by crucifying criminals in different positions, and it is likely that this would have been known to the author of the "Acts of Peter". The position attributed to Peter's crucifixion is thus plausible, either as having happened historically or as being an invention by the author of the "Acts of Peter". Death, after crucifixion head down, is unlikely to be caused by suffocation, the usual "cause of death in ordinary crucifixion".


title: Saint Peter

text: The Roman Martyrology assigns 29 June as the feast day of both Peter and Paul, without thereby declaring that to be the day of their deaths. Augustine of Hippo says in his Sermon 295: "One day is assigned for the celebration of the martyrdom of the two apostles. But those two were one. Although their martyrdom occurred on different days, they were one."


title: Saint Peter

text: In the Roman Rite, the feast of the Chair of Saint Peter is celebrated on 22 February, and the anniversary of the dedication of the two Papal Basilicas of Saint Peter's and Saint Paul outside the Walls is held on 18 November.


title: Saint Peter

text: Before Pope John XXIII's revision in 1960, the Roman Calendar also included on 18 January another feast of the Chair of Saint Peter (denominated the Chair of Saint Peter in Rome, while the February feast was then called that of the Chair of Saint Peter at Antioch), and on 1 August the feast of Saint Peter in Chains.


title: Saint Peter

text: In the Orthodox Daily Office every Thursday throughout the year is dedicated to the Holy Apostles, including St. Peter. There are also three feast days in the year which are dedicated to him:


title: Saint Peter

text: Peter is remembered (with Paul) in the Church of England with a Festival on 29 June, Peter the Apostle may be celebrated alone, without Paul, on 29 June.


title: Saint Peter

text: Christians of different theological backgrounds are in disagreement as to the exact significance of Peter's ministry. For instance:


title: Saint Peter

text: Similarly, historians of various backgrounds also offer differing interpretations of the Apostle's presence in Rome.


title: Saint Peter

text: According to Catholic belief, Simon Peter was distinguished by Jesus to hold the first place of honor and authority. Also in Catholic belief, Peter was, as the first Bishop of Rome, the first Pope. Furthermore, they consider every Pope to be Peter's successor and the rightful superior of all other bishops. However, Peter never bore the title of "Pope" or "Vicar of Christ" in the sense the Catholic Church considers Peter the first Pope.


title: Saint Peter

text: The Catholic Church's recognition of Peter as head of its church on earth (with Christ being its heavenly head) is based on its interpretation of two passages from the canonical gospels of the New Testament, as well as sacred tradition.


title: Saint Peter

text: The first passage is John 21:15–17 which is: "Feed my lambs... Tend my sheep... feed my sheep" (within the Greek it is Ποίμαινε i.e., to feed and rule [as a Shepherd] v. 16, while Βόσκε i.e., to feed for v.15 & v. 17)—which is seen by Catholics as Christ promising the spiritual supremacy to Peter. The "Catholic Encyclopedia" of 1913 sees in this passage Jesus "charging [Peter] with the superintendency of all his sheep, without exception; and consequently of his whole flock, that is, of his own church".


title: Saint Peter

text: In the story of the calling of the disciples, Jesus addresses Simon Peter with the Greek term Κηφᾶς ("Cephas"), a Hellenized form of Aramaic ܟ݁ܺܐܦ݂ܳܐ ("keepa"), which means "rock", a term that before was not used as a proper name:


title: Saint Peter

text: In reference to Peter's occupation before becoming an Apostle, the popes wear the Fisherman's Ring, which bears an image of the saint casting his nets from a fishing boat. The keys used as a symbol of the pope's authority refer to the "keys of the kingdom of Heaven" promised to Peter. The terminology of this "commission" of Peter is unmistakably parallel to the commissioning of Eliakim ben Hilkiah in Isaiah 22:15–23. Peter is often depicted in both Western and Eastern Christian art holding a key or a set of keys.


title: Saint Peter

text: In the original Greek the word translated as "Peter" is "Πέτρος" (Petros) and that translated as "rock" is "πέτρα" (petra), two words that, while not identical, give an impression of one of many times when Jesus used a play on words. Furthermore, since Jesus presumably spoke to Peter in their native Aramaic language, he would have used "kepha" in both instances. The Peshitta Text and the Old Syriac texts use the word "kepha" for both "Peter" and "rock" in Matthew 16:18. John 1:42 says Jesus called Simon "Cephas", as Paul calls him in some letters. He was instructed by Christ to strengthen his brethren, i.e., the apostles. Peter also had a leadership role in the early Christian church at Jerusalem according to The Acts of the Apostles chapters 1–2, 10–11, and 15.


title: Saint Peter

text: Early Catholic Latin and Greek writers (such as St. John Chrysostom) considered the "foundation rock" as applying to both Peter personally and his confession of faith (or the faith of his confession) symbolically, as well as seeing Christ's promise to apply more generally to his twelve apostles and the Church at large. This "double meaning" interpretation is present in the current Catechism of the Catholic Church.


title: Saint Peter

text: Protestant arguments against the Catholic interpretation are largely based on the difference between the Greek words translated "Rock" in the Matthean passage. They often claim that in classical Attic Greek "petros" (masculine) generally meant "pebble", while "petra" (feminine) meant "boulder" or "cliff", and accordingly, taking Peter's name to mean "pebble", they argue that the "rock" in question cannot have been Peter, but something else, either Jesus himself, or the faith in Jesus that Peter had just professed. These popular-level writings are disputed in similar popular-level Catholic writings.


title: Saint Peter

text: The New Testament was written in Koiné Greek, not Attic Greek, and some authorities say no significant difference existed between the meanings of "petros" and "petra". So far from meaning a pebble was the word "petros" that Apollonius Rhodius, a writer of Koiné Greek of the third century B.C., used it to refer to "a huge round "boulder", a terrible quoit of Ares Enyalius; four stalwart youths could not have raised it from the ground even a little".


title: Saint Peter

text: The feminine noun "petra" (πέτρα in Greek), translated as "rock" in the phrase "on this rock I will build my church", is also used at 1 Cor. 10:4 in describing Jesus Christ, which reads: "They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ."


title: Saint Peter

text: Although Matthew 16 is used as a primary proof-text for the Catholic doctrine of Papal supremacy, some Protestant scholars say that prior to the Reformation of the 16th century, Matthew 16 was very rarely used to support papal claims, despite it being well documented as being used in the 3rd century by Stephen of Rome against Cyprian of Carriage in a "passionate disagreement" about baptism and in the 4th century by Pope Damasus as a claim to primacy as a lesson of the Arian Controversy for stricter discipline and centralized control. Their position is that most of the early and medieval Church interpreted the "rock" as being a reference either to Christ or to Peter's faith, not Peter himself. They understand Jesus' remark to have been his affirmation of Peter's testimony that Jesus was the Son of God.


title: Saint Peter

text: Despite this claim, many Fathers saw a connection between Matthew 16:18 and the primacy of Peter and his office, such as Tertullian, writing: "The Lord said to Peter, 'On this rock I will build my Church, I have given you the keys of the kingdom of heaven [and] whatever you shall have bound or loosed on earth will be bound or loosed in heaven' [Matt. 16:18–19]. ...Upon you, he says, I will build my Church; and I will give to you the keys, not to the Church."


title: Saint Peter

text: The church in Rome was already flourishing when Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans about AD 57. He greets some fifty people in Rome by name, but not Peter whom he knew. There is also no mention of Peter in Rome later during Paul's two-year stay there in , about AD 60–62. Some Church historians consider Peter and Paul to have been martyred under the reign of Nero, around AD 64 or 68.


title: Saint Peter

text: Other theologically conservative Christians, including Confessional Lutherans, also rebut comments made by Karl Keating and D.A. Carson who claim that there is no distinction between the words "petros" and "petra" in Koine Greek. The Lutheran theologians state that the dictionaries of Koine/NT Greek, including the authoritative Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich Lexicon, indeed list both words and the passages that give different meanings for each. The Lutheran theologians further note that:


title: Saint Peter

text: Oscar Cullmann, a Lutheran theologian and distinguished Church historian, disagrees with Luther and the Protestant reformers who held that by "rock" Christ did not mean Peter, but meant either himself or the faith of His followers. He believes the meaning of the original Aramaic is very clear: that "Kepha" was the Aramaic word for "rock", and that it was also the name by which Christ called Peter.


title: Saint Peter

text: Yet, Cullmann sharply rejects the Catholic claim that Peter began the papal succession. He writes: "In the life of Peter there is no starting point for a chain of succession to the leadership of the church at large." While he believes the Matthew text is entirely valid and is in no way spurious, he says it cannot be used as "warrant of the papal succession." Cullmann concludes that while Peter "was" the original head of the apostles, Peter was not the founder of any visible church succession.


title: Saint Peter

text: There are other Protestant scholars who also partially defend the historical Catholic position about "Rock." Taking a somewhat different approach from Cullman, they point out that the Gospel of Matthew was not written in the classical Attic form of Greek, but in the Hellenistic Koine dialect in which there is no distinction in meaning between "petros" and "petra". Moreover, even in Attic Greek, in which the regular meaning of "petros" was a smallish "stone", there are instances of its use to refer to larger rocks, as in Sophocles, "Oedipus at Colonus" v. 1595, where "petros" refers to a boulder used as a landmark, obviously something more than a pebble. In any case, a "petros"/"petra" distinction is irrelevant considering the Aramaic language in which the phrase might well have been spoken. In Greek, of any period, the feminine noun "petra" could not be used as the given name of a male, which may explain the use of "Petros" as the Greek word with which to translate Aramaic "Kepha".


title: Saint Peter

text: Yet, still other Protestant scholars believe that Jesus in fact "did" mean to single out Peter as the very rock which he will build upon, but that the passage does nothing to indicate a continued succession of Peter's implied position. They assert that Matthew uses the demonstrative pronoun "taute", which allegedly means "this very" or "this same", when he refers to the rock on which Jesus' church will be built. He also uses the Greek word for "and", "kai". It is alleged that when a demonstrative pronoun is used with "kai", the pronoun refers back to the preceding noun. The second rock Jesus refers to must then be the same rock as the first one; and if Peter is the first rock he must also be the second.


title: Saint Peter

text: Unlike Oscar Cullmann, Confessional Lutherans and many other Protestant apologists agree that it's meaningless to elaborate the meaning of "Rock" by looking at the Aramaic language. While the Jews spoke mostly Aramaic at home, in public they usually spoke Greek. The few Aramaic words spoken by Jesus in public were unusual, which is why they are noted as such. And most importantly the New Testament was revealed in Koine Greek, "not" Aramaic.


title: Saint Peter

text: Lutheran historians even report that the Catholic church itself didn't, at least unanimously, regard Peter as the rock until the 1870s:


title: Saint Peter

text: The Eastern Orthodox Church regards Apostle Peter, together with Apostle Paul, as "Preeminent Apostles". Another title used for Peter is "Coryphaeus", which could be translated as "Choir-director", or lead singer. The church recognizes Apostle Peter's leadership role in the early church, especially in the very early days at Jerusalem, but does not consider him to have had any "princely" role over his fellow Apostles.


title: Saint Peter

text: The New Testament is not seen by the Orthodox as supporting any extraordinary authority for Peter with regard to faith or morals. The Orthodox also hold that Peter did not act as leader at the Council of Jerusalem, but as merely one of a number who spoke. The final decision regarding the non-necessity of circumcision (and certain prohibitions) was spelled out by James, the Brother of the Lord (though Catholics hold James merely reiterated and fleshed out what Peter had said, regarding the latter's earlier divine revelation regarding the inclusion of Gentiles).


title: Saint Peter

text: Eastern and Oriental Orthodox do not recognize the Bishop of Rome as the successor of St. Peter but the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople sends a delegation each year to Rome to participate in the celebration of the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. In the Ravenna Document of 13 October 2007, the representatives of the Eastern Orthodox Church agreed that "Rome, as the Church that 'presides in love' according to the phrase of St. Ignatius of Antioch ("To the Romans", Prologue), occupied the first place in the "taxis", and that the bishop of Rome was therefore the "protos" among the patriarchs, if the Papacy unites with the Orthodox Church. They disagree, however, on the interpretation of the historical evidence from this era regarding the prerogatives of the bishop of Rome as "protos", a matter that was already understood in different ways in the first millennium."


title: Saint Peter

text: With regard to Jesus' words to Peter, "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church", the Orthodox hold Christ is referring to the confession of faith, "not" the person of Peter as that upon which he will build the church. This is allegedly shown by the fact that the original Septuagint uses the feminine demonstrative pronoun when he says "upon this rock" (ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ); whereas, grammatically, if he had been referring to Peter, he would allegedly have used the masculine.


title: Saint Peter

text: The Fathers of the Syriac Orthodox Church tried to give a theological interpretation to the primacy of Apostle Peter. They were fully convinced of the unique office of Peter in the primitive Christian community. Ephrem, Aphrahat and Maruthas who were supposed to have been the best exponents of the early Syriac tradition unequivocally acknowledge the office of Peter.


title: Saint Peter

text: The Syriac Fathers, following the rabbinic tradition, call Jesus "Kepha" for they see "rock" in the Old Testament as a messianic Symbol (yet the Old Maronite Syriacs of Lebanon still refer to Saint Peter as "Saint Simon the Generous" or Simon Karam"). When Christ gave his own name "Kepha" to Simon he was giving him participation in the person and office of Christ. Christ who is the Kepha and shepherd made Simon the chief shepherd in his place and gave him the very name Kepha and said that on Kepha he would build the Church. Aphrahat shared the common Syriac tradition. For him Kepha is in fact another name of Jesus, and Simon was given the right to share the name. The person who receives somebody else's name also obtains the rights of the person who bestows the name. Aphrahat makes the stone taken from Jordan a type of Peter. He wrote: "Jesus son of Nun set up the stones for a witness in Israel; Jesus our Saviour called Simon Kepha Sarirto and set him as the faithful witness among nations."


title: Saint Peter

text: Again he wrote in his commentary on Deuteronomy that Moses brought forth water from "rock" (Kepha) for the people and Jesus sent Simon Kepha to carry his teachings among nations. God accepted him and made him the foundation of the Church and called him Kepha. When he speaks about the transfiguration of Christ he calls him Simon Peter, the foundation of the Church. Ephrem also shared the same view. The Armenian version of De Virginitate records that Peter the rock shunned honour. A "mimro" of Efrem found in Holy Week Liturgy points to the importance of Peter.


title: Saint Peter

text: Both Aphrahat and Ephrem represent the authentic tradition of the Syrian Church. The different orders of liturgies used for sanctification of Church buildings, marriage, ordination, "et cetera", reveal that the primacy of Peter is a part of living faith of the Church.


title: Saint Peter

text: The New Apostolic Church, which believes in the re-established Apostle ministry, sees Peter as the first Chief Apostle.


title: Saint Peter

text: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that Peter was the first leader of the early Christian church after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. While the Church accepts apostolic succession from Peter, it rejects papal successors as illegitimate. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, recorded in multiple revelations that the resurrected Peter appeared to him and Oliver Cowdery in 1829, near Harmony Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, in order to bestow the apostleship and keys of the kingdom as part of a restoration of priesthood authority.


title: Saint Peter

text: In interpreting , Latter-day Saint leader Bruce R. McConkie stated, "The things of God are known only by the power of his Spirit," and "that which the world calls Mormonism is based upon the rock of revelation." In his April 1981 general conference address, McConkie identified the rock of which Jesus spoke as the rock of revelation: "There is no other foundation upon which the Lord could build His Church and kingdom. ...Revelation: Pure, perfect, personal revelation—this is the rock!"


title: Saint Peter

text: According to an old Jewish tradition, Simon Peter joined the early Christians at the decision of the rabbis. Worried that early Christianity's similarity to Judaism would lead people to mistake it for a branch of Judaism, he was chosen to join them. As he moved up in rank, he would be able to lead them into forming their own, distinct belief system. Despite this, he was said to remain a practicing Jew, and is ascribed with the authorship of the Nishmas prayer.


title: Saint Peter

text: Muslims consider Jesus a prophet of God. The Qur'an also speaks of Jesus's disciples but does not mention their names, instead referring to them as "helpers to the prophet of God". Muslim exegesis and Qur'an commentary, however, names them and includes Peter among the disciples. An old tradition, which involves the legend of Habib the Carpenter, mentions that Peter was one of the three disciples sent to Antioch to preach to the people there.


title: Saint Peter

text: Twelver Shia Muslims see a parallel in the figure of Peter to Ali at Muhammad's time. They look upon Ali as being the vicegerent, with Muhammad being the prophet; likewise, they see Peter as the vicegerent, behind Jesus the prophet and Masih. Peter's role as the first proper leader of the church is also seen by Shias to be a parallel to their belief in Ali as the first caliph after Muhammad.


title: Saint Peter

text: In the Bahá’í Faith "the primacy of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, is upheld and defended." Bahá’ís understand Peter's station as The Rock upon which the church of God would be founded to mean that Peter's belief in Christ as the Son of the living God would serve as the foundation for Christianity, and that upon this belief would the foundation of the church of God, understood as the Law of God, be established. Peter appears in the writings of Bahá’u’lláh, the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, often referred to as The Rock:


title: Saint Peter

text: His name with a prefix (related to river names) was applied to Donbettyr, the Osettian god of waters, patron of fish and fishermen.


title: Saint Peter

text: San Pedro cactus "(Echinopsis pachanoi)" has a long history of being used in Andean traditional medicine. The common name "San Pedro cactus" – Saint Peter cactus, is attributed to the belief that as St Peter holds the keys to heaven, the effects of the cactus allow users "to reach heaven while still on earth." In 2022, the Peruvian Ministry of Culture declared the traditional use of San Pedro cactus in northern Peru as cultural heritage.


title: Saint Peter

text: Traditionally, two canonical epistles (1 and 2 Peter) and several apocryphal works have been attributed to Peter.


title: Saint Peter

text: The New Testament includes two letters ("epistles") ascribed to Peter. Both demonstrate a high quality of cultured and urban Greek, at odds with the linguistic skill that would ordinarily be expected of an Aramaic-speaking fisherman, who would have learned Greek as a second or third language. The textual features of these two epistles are such that a majority of scholars doubt that they were written by the same hand. Some scholars argue that theological differences imply different sources, and point to the lack of references to 2 Peter among the early Church Fathers.


title: Saint Peter

text: Daniel B. Wallace (who maintains that Peter was the author) writes that, for many scholars, "the issue of authorship is already settled, at least negatively: the apostle Peter did not write this letter" and that "the vast bulk of NT scholars adopts this perspective without much discussion". However, he later states, "Although a very strong case has been made against Petrine authorship of 2 Peter, we believe it is deficient. ...Taken together, these external and internal arguments strongly suggest the traditional view, viz., that Peter was indeed the author of the second epistle which bears his name."


title: Saint Peter

text: Of the two epistles, the first epistle is considered the earlier. A number of scholars have argued that the textual discrepancies with what would be expected of the biblical Peter are due to it having been written with the help of a secretary or as an amanuensis.


title: Saint Peter

text: Some have seen a reference to the use of a secretary in the sentence: "By Silvanus, a faithful brother unto you, as I suppose, I have written briefly, exhorting, and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand". However New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman in his 2011 book "Forged" states that "scholars now widely recognize that when the author indicates that he wrote the book 'through Silvanus', he is indicating not the name of his secretary, but the person who was carrying his letter to the recipients." The letter refers to Roman persecution of Christians, apparently of an official nature. The Roman historian Tacitus and the biographer Suetonius do both record that Nero persecuted Christians, and Tacitus dates this to immediately after the fire that burned Rome in 64. Christian tradition, for example Eusebius of Caesarea ("History" book 2, 24.1), has maintained that Peter was killed in Nero's persecution, and thus had to assume that the Roman persecution alluded to in First Peter must be this Neronian persecution. On the other hand, many modern scholars argue that First Peter refers to the persecution of Christians in Asia Minor during the reign of the emperor Domitian (81–96), as the letter is explicitly addressed to Jewish Christians from that region:


title: Saint Peter

text: Those scholars who believe that the epistle dates from the time of Domitian argue that Nero's persecution of Christians was confined to the city of Rome itself, and did not extend to the Asian provinces mentioned in 1 Pet 1:1–2.


title: Saint Peter

text: The Second Epistle of Peter, on the other hand, appears to have been copied, in part, from the Epistle of Jude, and some modern scholars date its composition as late as "c." 150. Some scholars argue the opposite, that the Epistle of Jude copied Second Peter, while others contend an early date for Jude and thus observe that an early date is not incompatible with the text. Many scholars have noted the similarities between the apocryphal Second Epistle of Clement (2nd century) and Second Peter. Second Peter may be earlier than 150; there are a few possible references to it that date back to the 1st century or early 2nd century, e.g., 1 Clement written in "c." AD 96, and the later church historian Eusebius wrote that Origen had made reference to the epistle before 250.


title: Saint Peter

text: Jerome says that Peter "wrote two epistles which are called Catholic, the second of which, on account of its difference from the first in style, is considered by many not to be by him""(De Viris Illustribus 1)." But he himself received the epistle, and explained the difference in style, character, and structure of words by the assumption that Peter used different interpreters in the composition of the two epistles; and from his time onward the epistle was generally regarded as a part of the New Testament.


title: Saint Peter

text: Even in early times there was controversy over its authorship, and Second Peter was often not included in the biblical canon; it was only in the 4th century that it gained a firm foothold in the New Testament, in a series of synods. In the East the Syriac Orthodox Church still did not admit it into the canon until the 6th century.


title: Saint Peter

text: Traditionally, the Gospel of Mark was said to have been written by a person named John Mark, and that this person was an assistant to Peter; hence its content was traditionally seen as the closest to Peter's viewpoint. According to Eusebius' "Ecclesiastical History", Papias recorded this belief from John the Presbyter:


title: Saint Peter

text: Clement of Alexandria in the fragments of his work "Hypotyposes" (A.D. 190) preserved and cited by the historian Eusebius in his "Church History" (VI, 14: 6) writes that:


title: Saint Peter

text: Based on these quotes, and on the Christian tradition, the information in Mark's gospel about Peter would be based on eyewitness material. The gospel itself is anonymous, and the above passages are the oldest surviving written testimony to its authorship.


title: Saint Peter

text: There are also a number of other apocryphal writings, that have been either attributed to or written about Peter. These include:


title: Saint Peter

text: Two sayings are attributed to Peter in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas. In the first, Peter compares Jesus to a "just messenger". In the second, Peter asks Jesus to "make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." In the Apocalypse of Peter, Peter holds a dialogue with Jesus about the parable of the fig tree and the fate of sinners. In the Gospel of Mary, whose text is largely fragmented, Peter appears to be jealous of "Mary" (probably Mary Magdalene). He says to the other disciples, "Did He really speak privately with a woman and not openly to us? Are we to turn about and all listen to her? Did He prefer her to us?" In reply to this, Levi says, "Peter, you have always been hot tempered." Other noncanonical texts that attribute sayings to Peter include the Secret Book of James and the Acts of Peter.


title: Saint Peter

text: In the Fayyum Fragment, which dates to the end of the 3rd century, Jesus predicts that Peter will deny him three times before a cock crows on the following morning. The account is similar to that of the canonical gospels, especially the Gospel of Mark. It is unclear whether the fragment is an abridged version of the accounts in the synoptic gospels, or a source text on which they were based, perhaps the apocryphal Gospel of Peter.


title: Saint Peter

text: The fragmentary Gospel of Peter contains an account of the death of Jesus differing significantly from the canonical gospels. It contains little information about Peter himself, except that after the discovery of the empty tomb, "I, Simon Peter, and Andrew my brother, took our fishing nets and went to the sea."


title: Saint Peter

text: The earliest portrait of Peter dates back to the 4th century and was located in 2010. In traditional iconography, Peter has been shown very consistently since early Christian art as an oldish, thick-set man with a "slightly combative" face and a short beard, and usually white hair, sometimes balding. He thus contrasts with Paul the Apostle who is bald except at the sides, with a longer beard and often black hair, and thinner in the face. One exception to this is in Anglo-Saxon art, where he typically lacks a beard. Both Peter and Paul are shown thus as early as the 4th century Catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter in Rome. Later in the Middle Ages his attribute is one or two large keys in his hand or hanging from his belt, first seen in the early 8th century. More than many medieval attributes, this continued to be depicted in the Renaissance and afterwards. By the 15th century Peter is more likely to be bald on the top of his head in the Western church, but he continues to have a good head of hair in Orthodox icons.


title: Saint Peter

text: The depiction of Saint Peter as literally the keeper of the gates of heaven, popular with modern cartoonists, is not found in traditional religious art, but Peter usually heads groups of saints flanking God in heaven, on the right side (viewer's left) of God. Narrative images of Peter include several scenes from the "Life of Christ" where he is mentioned in the gospels, and he is often identifiable in scenes where his presence is not specifically mentioned. Usually he stands nearest to Christ. In particular, depictions of the "Arrest of Christ" usually include Peter cutting off the ear of one of the soldiers. Scenes without Jesus include his distinctive martyrdom, his rescue from prison, and sometimes his trial. In the Counter-Reformation scenes of Peter hearing the cock crow for the third time became popular, as a representation of repentance and hence the Catholic sacrament of Confession or Reconciliation.


title: Saint Peter

text: L. Michael White suggests that there was a serious division between Peter's Jewish Christian party and Paul's Hellenizing party, seen in e.g. the Incident at Antioch, which later Christian accounts have downplayed.


title: Saint Peter

text: Another revisionist view was developed by supporters of the Christ myth theory, which holds that the figure of Peter is largely a development from some mythological doorkeeper figures. According to Arthur Drews and G. A. Wells, if there was a historical Peter, then all that is known about him is the brief mentions in Galatians.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: Coco is a 2017 American computer-animated fantasy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Based on an original idea by Lee Unkrich, it is directed by him and co-directed by Adrian Molina. The film's voice cast stars Anthony Gonzalez, Gael García Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Alanna Ubach, Renée Victor, Ana Ofelia Murguía and Edward James Olmos. The story follows a 12-year-old boy named Miguel (Gonzalez) who is accidentally transported to the Land of the Dead, where he seeks the help of his deceased musician great-great-grandfather to return him to his family among the living and to reverse his family's ban on music.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: The concept for "Coco" is inspired by the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead. The film was scripted by Molina and Matthew Aldrich from a story by Unkrich, Jason Katz, Aldrich, and Molina. Pixar began developing the animation in 2016; Unkrich and some of the film's crew visited Mexico for research. Composer Michael Giacchino, who had worked on prior Pixar animated features, composed the score. With a cost of $175–225million, "Coco" is the first film with a nine-figure budget to feature an all-Latino principal cast.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: "Coco" premiered on October 20, 2017, during the Morelia International Film Festival in Morelia, Mexico. It was theatrically released in Mexico the following week, the weekend before , and in the United States on November 22, 2017. The film was praised for its animation, voice acting, music, visuals, emotional story, and respect for Mexican culture. It grossed over $807million worldwide, becoming the 16th highest-grossing animated film ever at the time of its release. "Coco" received two awards at the 90th Academy Awards, and numerous other accolades. The film was chosen by the National Board of Review as the Best Animated Film of 2017.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: In the Mexican town of Santa Cecilia, a young woman named Imelda marries a man who eventually leaves her and her daughter Coco to pursue a music career. When he never returns, Imelda banishes music from her family forever and starts a shoemaking business.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: Several years later, Imelda's great-great-grandson, Miguel, now lives with the elderly Coco and their family, including Miguel's parents and his grandmother, who are also shoemakers. Despite his family's music ban, Miguel secretly idolizes the deceased musician Ernesto de la Cruz, and teaches himself to play guitar by watching Ernesto's old films. On the Day of the Dead, Miguel inadvertently bumps into the family , breaking a frame containing a photo of Imelda and an infant Coco. He discovers a hidden section of the photograph shows his great-great-grandfather, whose head has been torn from the photo, holding Ernesto's famous guitar. Believing this proves Ernesto is his relative, Miguel tells his family he will become a musician.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: After Miguel's grandmother destroys his guitar, Miguel breaks into Ernesto's mausoleum and takes Ernesto's guitar to use in a local talent competition. Once Miguel strums it, he becomes invisible to all living people. However, he can interact with his skeletal dead relatives, who are visiting from the Land of the Dead for the holiday. Taking him back with them, they learn that Imelda cannot visit, since Miguel inadvertently removed her photo from the . Miguel also discovers that stealing Ernesto's guitar caused him to be cursed; he must have a family blessing to return to the Land of the Living before sunrise, or he will die. Imelda offers him a blessing on the condition he abandons music, but Miguel decides to seek Ernesto's blessing instead. He encounters a homeless skeleton named Héctor, who offers to help Miguel get to Ernesto, provided Miguel takes Héctor's photo to the Land of the Living and puts it on an . Otherwise, Héctor will never get to visit his daughter, and will eventually disappear as one of the forgotten. Héctor helps Miguel enter a talent competition to win entry to Ernesto's mansion, but Miguel's family tracks him down, forcing him to flee again.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: Miguel sneaks into the mansion, where a surprised Ernesto welcomes him as his descendant. Héctor arrives, again imploring Miguel to put up his photo. Ernesto and Héctor, who once performed together, begin to argue; Miguel learns that, when Héctor wanted to break up the act and return home, Ernesto, who could not write songs himself, poisoned Héctor and stole his guitar and songs, passing them off as his own. To protect his legacy, Ernesto seizes Héctor's photo, and has Miguel and Héctor thrown into a cenote pit. There, Miguel discovers that Coco's father, and Imelda's lost husband, is Héctor, not Ernesto.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: Rescued by his family, Miguel reveals the truth about Héctor's death. Imelda and Héctor reconcile, and the family infiltrates Ernesto's concert to retrieve Héctor's photo. Ernesto's crimes are exposed to the audience, and Imelda's alebrije Pepita attacks Ernesto, causing a giant bell to fall on him. In the chaos, Héctor's photograph is lost. As the sun rises, Coco's memory of Héctor fades; Imelda and a fading Héctor quickly bless Miguel, who returns home.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: After Miguel plays "Remember Me" on Héctor's guitar, Coco brightens and sings along with him. She reveals that she had saved the torn-off piece of the family photo with Héctor's face on it, then tells her family stories about her father, thus saving his memory as well as his existence in the Land of the Dead. Miguel's family reconciles with him, ending the ban on music.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: One year later, Coco's collected letters from Héctor prove that Ernesto stole his songs, allowing Héctor to be rightfully honored in Ernesto's place. Miguel shows the family to his new baby sister Socorro; the "ofrenda" now contains Héctor and a recently-deceased Coco. In the Land of the Dead, Héctor and Imelda rekindle their romance, joining Coco and the rest of their family for a visit to the living. Miguel sings and plays for his relatives, both living and dead.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: The animal characters Dante and Pepita are Alebrije which serve as spirit guides in this film. Dante is a Xoloitzcuintle with bird-like wings in his Alebrije form. Pepita is a cat whose Alebrije form gives her the head, torso, and front paws of a jaguar, the horns of a ram, the wings and hindlegs of an eagle, and the tail of an iguana.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: Lee Unkrich first pitched an idea for the film in 2010, when "Toy Story 3", which he also directed, was released. Initially the film was to be about an American child, learning about his Mexican heritage, while dealing with the death of his mother. Eventually, the team decided that this was the wrong approach and reformed the film to focus on a Mexican child instead. Of the original version, Unkrich noted that it "reflected the fact that none of us at the time were from Mexico." The fact that the film depicted "a real culture" caused anxiety for Unkrich, who "felt an enormous responsibility on [his] shoulders to do it right."


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: The Pixar team made several trips to Mexico to help define the characters and story of "Coco". Unkrich said, "I'd seen it portrayed in folk art. It was something about the juxtaposition of skeletons with bright, festive colors that captured my imagination. It has led me down a winding path of discovery. And the more I learn about "[el] Día de los Muertos", the more it affects me deeply." The team found it difficult working with skeletal creatures, as they lacked any muscular system, and as such had to be animated differently from their human counterparts. "Coco" also took inspiration from Hayao Miyazaki's anime films "Spirited Away" (2001) and "Howl's Moving Castle" (2004) as well as the action film "John Wick" (2014).


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: In 2013, Disney made a request to trademark the phrase "Día de los Muertos" for merchandising applications. This was met with criticism from the Mexican American community in the United States. Lalo Alcaraz, a Mexican-American cartoonist, drew a film poster titled "Muerto Mouse", depicting a skeletal Godzilla-sized Mickey Mouse with the byline "It's coming to trademark your "cultura"." More than 21,000 people signed a petition on Change.org stating that the trademark was "cultural appropriation and exploitation at its worst". A week later, Disney canceled the attempt, with the official statement saying that the "trademark filing was intended to protect any title for our film and related activities. It has since been determined that the title of the film will change, and therefore we are withdrawing our trademark filing." In 2015, Pixar hired Alcaraz to consult on the film, joining playwright Octavio Solis and former CEO of the Mexican Heritage Corp. Marcela Davison Aviles, to form a cultural consultant group.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: Unkrich found writing the script "the toughest nut to crack". Earlier versions of the film had different universe rules regarding how Miguel (originally called Marco) would get back from the land of the dead; in one case he physically had to run across the bridge. In one version of the story, his family is cursed with singing when trying to speak, which was included as a technique to add music to a story where music is banned.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: "Coco" is the first motion picture with a nine-figure budget to feature an all-Latino cast, with a cost of $175–200million. Gonzalez first auditioned for the role of Miguel when he was nine and was finalized in the role two years later. Speaking of his character, Gonzalez said: "[Miguel and I] both know the importance of following our dream and we know the importance of following our tradition, so that's something that I connected with Miguel a lot". During the film's pre-production, Miguel was originally set to be voiced by a child named Emilio Fuentes, who was removed from the role after his voice deepened due to puberty over the course of the film's production.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: In 2016, the "Coco" team made an official announcement about the cast, which revealed that Gael Garcia Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Renée Victor, and Anthony Gonzalez would voice the characters. Bratt, who voiced De la Cruz, was "moved" when he realized that Disney-Pixar wanted to make a film on Latin culture. Disney officials closely monitored Bernal's movements and expressions while he voiced the characters and used their input for animating Héctor.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: Bratt voiced Ernesto De la Cruz, a character who he described as "the Mexican Frank Sinatra"; "[a] larger than life persona". On the advice of the filmmakers, Bratt watched videos of equivalent Mexican actors including Jorge Negrete and Pedro Infante. Bratt found the character similar to his father in physical appearance, "swagger and confidence", and worked in the film as a tribute to him. The character Mama Imelda's voice was provided by Alanna Ubach. Ubach felt that the film "is [giving] respect to one quality that all Latin families across the universe do have in common, and that is giving respect and prioritizing the importance of family". Mama Imelda's voice was influenced by Ubach's tía Flora, who was a "profound influence in [her] life". Ubach felt her tía was the family's matriarch, and dedicated the film to her tía.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: A cameo appearance was made by Marvel's "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D" actress Natalia Cordova-Buckley as Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Unkrich stated that Cordova-Buckley's "role in "Coco" pays homage to Ms. Kahlo, her work and the people of Mexico who love her". Unkrich also stated that it was a struggle to find a role in the film for John Ratzenberger, who is not Latino but had voiced a character in every Pixar film. As Unkrich did not want to break Pixar's tradition, Ratzenberger was given a minor role with one word.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: On April 13, 2016, Unkrich announced that they had begun work on the animation. The film's writer, Adrian Molina, was promoted to co-director in late 2016. Unkrich said that Pixar wanted "to have as much contrast between" the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead and that many techniques were used to differentiate the worlds. Color was one: "Given the holiday and the iconography, [Pixar] knew the Land of the Dead had to be a visually vibrant and colorful place, so [they] deliberately designed Santa Cecilia to be more muted" said Unkrich.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: According to Harley Jessup, the film's production designer, Santa Cecilia is based on real Mexican villages, as the production team "stayed grounded in reality in the Land of the Living". Chris Bernardi, the film's set supervisor, said that the town was made small so Miguel could feel confined. Bert Berry, the film's art director, said that aged building materials were used to depict Santa Cecilia "as an older charming city". According to Unkrich, Miguel's guitar playing is authentic, as they "videotaped musicians playing each song or melody and strapped GoPros on their guitars" to use as a reference. For the scene in which Miguel plays music in his secret hideout, the filmmakers used "very elegant, lyrical camera moves" and "gentle drifts and slow arcing moves around Miguel as he plays his guitar with very shallow depth of field to enhance the beauty of the soft-focus foreground candles".


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: Christian Hoffman, the film's character supervisor, said that all of the details in Mama Coco's face were not modeled. Instead, his team used special software to design separate layers of detail, which were then added to her face with a shader. The character's model was made with higher resolution to get all the wrinkles right, according to Hoffman. Pixar used some Xolo dogs to use as reference for the character Dante, while a tentacle from "Finding Dory"'s Hank was used for his tongue.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: Jessup called the Marigold petal bridge that connects both worlds "elegant and magical". Michael K. O'Brien, the film's effects supervisor, called it "a huge technical challenge" for the animation team, but referred to it as something "so visually exciting with petals dripping from it; it was a massive artistic undertaking. [the production team] wanted it to glow — to feel alive". The scenes in which Miguel takes a few petals off of the bridge and in which Hector sinks into the bridge were given more effects and special art direction.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: For the Land of the Dead, Unkrich did not want "to have just a free-for-all, wacky world", wanting instead to add logic and be "ever-expanding because new residents would arrive regularly". Jessup said that the animation team wanted the Land of the Dead "to be a vibrant explosion of color" when Miguel arrives. Jessup also said that "Lee [Unkrich] described a vertical world of towers, contrasting with the flatness of Santa Cecilia. The lights and reflections are dazzling and there's a crazy transportation system that connects it all. The costume colors are much more vibrant than in the Land of the Living, where [the animation team] tried to stay grounded in reality. [They] really went all out in the Land of the Dead to make it a reflection of the holiday". According to David Ryu, the film's supervising technical director, the animation team "figured out a way to introduce a single light — but give it a million points" for the scenes on the outside in the Land of the Dead: "The renderer sees it as one light, but we see a million lights".


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: According to art director Daniel Arraiga, the animators "had to figure out how to give [the skeletons] personality without skin, muscles, noses or even lips" and that they "played with shapes and did a lot of paintings. [They] sculpted and studied skulls from every angle to figure out where [they] could add appeal and charm". Global technology supervisor J.D. Northrup was hired early in the film's production in order to avoid potential issues in the film's animation process. Northrup said that "Each [of the skeletons' pieces] had to be independent so the complexity of the rig and the stress that it puts on the pipeline were something like we've never seen before." Northrup was also tasked with simplifying the skeleton's elements to render the skeleton crowds. In order to create the skeletons, several additional controls were used, as they "needed to move in ways that humans don't," according to character modeling and articulation lead Michael Honse. Honse said that the bones were a particular problem, stating that "there was a lot of back-and-forth with animation to get it right," but found "really cool ways" to move the skeletons.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: The first teaser of "Coco" was released on March 15, 2017. The teaser trailer introduced the basic concept of the film, while highlighting its focus on music. Scott Mendelson of "Forbes" praised the trailer as "a terrific old-school Pixar sell, mostly consisting of a single sequence and offering just the barest hint of what's to come." The film's themes and imagery drew comparison to another animated film that centered around Día de Muertos, "The Book of Life" (2014). A two-minute short film, titled "Dante's Lunch – A Short Tail", was released online on March 29, 2017. It introduces the film's supporting character, a Xoloitzcuintle named Dante. The short was created early in the animation process by Unkrich and his team to have a better sense of the character.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: The first official trailer was released on June 7, 2017, followed by a second trailer on September 13. The film was marketed extensively in Mexico, including traditional wall-painted advertising usually used for local events and never for films. Cinépolis, a movie chain in the country, held a contest for dubbing a character in the film, and another movie chain held a contest to become an interviewer for the cast and crew of the film.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: "Coco" premiered on October 27, 2017, at the Morelia International Film Festival. It was released in the United States on November 22, in 3D. In theaters, the film was accompanied by Walt Disney Animation Studios' 21-minute featurette "Olaf's Frozen Adventure" as a limited time offering, making "Coco" the first Pixar film not to be accompanied by a Pixar short since "Toy Story" (1995). The film also has its own VR game, being Pixar's first VR development.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: "Coco" was released for High Definition online streaming and digital download on February 13, 2018, and on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray on February 27, 2018, by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: A sing-along version of the film with words on the screen during the songs was released onto Disney+ on September 16, 2022.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: "Coco" grossed $210.5million in the United States and Canada, and $597.4million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $807.8million.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: "Coco" was released in Mexico on October 27, nearly a month before its release in the United States. It grossed $9.3million on its opening weekend, the biggest opening weekend for an original animated film and the biggest debut for an animated film outside of the summer movie season in the market. In its second weekend, it earned another $10.8million, a 12% increase over its first weekend, bringing its total to $28million. It became the fastest ten-day grosser ever for an animated feature in Mexico, as well as the biggest original animated release ever in the territory. It dropped by 23% in its third weekend, grossing $8.4million. That brought its total to MX$792million (US$41.4million), making it the highest-grossing animated film and the second-highest-grossing film of all time in Mexico, behind Marvel's "The Avengers", in local currency. A few days later, on November 15, it passed "The Avengers" to become the highest-grossing film in the Mexican market.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: In the United States and Canada, "Coco" was projected to gross $55–65million from 3,987 theaters in its first five days, including around $40million in its opening weekend. It made $2.3million from Tuesday night previews, landing between Disney's previous two November releases "Moana" ($2.6million) and "The Good Dinosaur" ($1.3million), and $13.2million on its first day. It went on to debut to $50.8million (including a five-day total of $72.9million), finishing first at the box office. It was the 4th-biggest Thanksgiving opening weekend ever, behind fellow animated films "Frozen", "Moana", and "Toy Story 2". In its second weekend, the film dropped by 46% to $27.5million, a smaller drop than "Moana", "Frozen", "Tangled", and "The Good Dinosaur", and again topping the box office. It topped the box office once again in its third weekend, dropping by 33% and grossing $18.5million, a similar hold to "Moana". It became the fourth film of 2017 to top the box office three times, following "Split", "The Fate of the Furious" and "The Hitman's Bodyguard", before being overtaken by Disney's own "" and another animated film, "Ferdinand", in its fourth weekend.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: It fell to number six in its fifth weekend, due to competition from three new releases – "", "Pitch Perfect 3", and "The Greatest Showman" – despite a small drop again; it grossed $2.8million on Christmas Day. On the holiday week of December 22–28, the film finished at number six with a gross of $16.3million, which was 6% up from the previous week, despite losing over 1,000 theaters. It finished at number six in its sixth weekend, going up 39% and 87%, respectively, during the three-day and four-day weekends; it grossed $2.6million on New Year's Day. It fell outside the top 10 in its eighth weekend (which included Martin Luther King Jr. Day), dropping 38% and 14% respectively, during the three-day and four-day weekends.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: In China, "Coco" finished number one at the weekend box office, with a three-day total of $18.2million, making it the second-highest opening ever for a Disney or Pixar animated release in that market, behind "Zootopia". After seeing increases each weekday on its first week, the film increased by 148% on its second weekend, bringing its total to $75.6million in the market. It dropped by 21% in its third weekend, finishing first once again and grossing $35Million. The film fell to number three in its fourth weekend, due to competition from two new domestic releases, grossing an additional $17.1million. "Coco's" success in China came as a surprise to most box office analysts who were projecting a gross of $30–40million. By its second weekend, it had become the highest-grossing Pixar release ever in China, nearly doubling previous record-holder "Finding Dory", and by its fifth weekend, it had surpassed "Despicable Me 3" to become the second highest-grossing animated movie of all time in the country, behind "Zootopia". The movie was released in Japan, its final market, on March 16, 2018. the film's largest markets were China ($189.2million), Mexico ($57.8million), Japan ($41.4million), France ($33.2million), United Kingdom ($26.1million), South Korea ($25.9million), Spain ($21.4million), Argentina ($17.6million), Italy ($14.4million) and Germany ($12.3million).


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, ""Coco"s rich visual pleasures are matched by a thoughtful narrative that takes a family-friendly—and deeply affecting—approach to questions of culture, family, life, and death." It was the site's highest-rated animated film and ninth highest-rated wide release of 2017. On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 81 out of 100, based on 48 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "A+" on an A+ to F scale, one of fewer than 90 films in the history of the service to receive such a score; it was also the sixth Pixar film to earn the rating – the previous being "Up" in 2009. It also earned a 95% positive score, including a rare five-out-of-five rating, from filmgoers on PostTrak, along with a 76% "definite recommend".


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: Michael Rechtshaffen of "The Hollywood Reporter" said, "At every imaginative juncture, the filmmakers (the screenplay is credited to Pixar veteran Molina and Matthew Aldrich) create a richly woven tapestry of comprehensively researched storytelling, fully dimensional characters, clever touches both tender and amusingly macabre, and vivid, beautifully textured visuals." Robert Abele of "TheWrap" praised the film, saying: "If an animated movie is going to offer children a way to process death, it's hard to envision a more spirited, touching and breezily entertaining example than "Coco"." In his review for "Variety", Peter Debruge wrote, "In any case, it works: "Coco"s creators clearly had the perfect ending in mind before they'd nailed down all the other details, and though the movie drags in places, and features a few too many childish gags... the story's sincere emotional resolution earns the sobs it's sure to inspire." Debruge also described the film as "[An] effective yet hardly exceptional addition to the Pixar oeuvre." Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com gave the film four out of four, writing that "There's a touch of Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki in the film's matter-of-fact depiction of the dead interacting with the living, as well as its portrayal of certain creatures" such as Dante and Pepita. He concluded his review by stating, "I had some minor quibbles about ["Coco"] while I was watching it, but I can't remember what they were. This film is a classic."


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" rated the film 3.5 out of four, calling it a "loving tribute to Mexican culture", while praising the animation, vocal performances (particularly of Gonzalez, García Bernal, and Bratt), and its emotional and thematic tone and depth. The "Chicago Tribune"s Michael Phillips called the film "vividly good, beautifully animated", praising Giacchino's musical score and the songs, as well drawing a comparison to the emotional tone of "Inside Out". A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" praised the film as "a time-tested tune with captivating originality and flair, and with roving, playful pop-culture erudition", and called the film's cultural vibe "inclusive" and "a 21st-century Disney hallmark". Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" found the film to be "full of life" and deemed it "a bouncy and heart-tugging adventure", while lauding the vocal performances as "fantastic" and "first-rate". Brian Truitt of "USA Today" described the film as "effervescent, clever and thoughtful," calling it one of "Pixar's most gorgeously animated outings", and "the most musical Pixar film, with a host of catchy tunes". Stephen Whitty of the "Newark Star-Ledger" wrote that the backgrounds "have a vibrancy, and its atmosphere carries a warmth. And even after it's done, both linger, just a bit—like a perfectly struck guitar chord".


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: At the 90th Academy Awards, "Coco" received awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song. The film's other nominations include thirteen Annie Awards (winning eleven), two Critics' Choice Movie Awards (winning two), and two Golden Globe Awards (winning one). "Coco" was chosen by the National Board of Review as the Best Animated Film of 2017.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: In 2018, several Mexican news outlets reported that Disney and Pixar had failed to disclose that the producers for "Coco" had based the character of Mamá Coco on María de la Salud Ramírez Caballero from the Purépecha village of Santa Fe de la Laguna, "a town of Purépecha potters in Quiroga, Michoacán." In a news interview, Salud stated that the producers "offered me so many things, but nothing came of it. They only came and took my picture and took it with them. They asked me what I need. Well, look at how I live and alone. My daughters live here, behind the house. And I'm here alone, that's what I have." In a report by Telemundo, residents and artisans of Santa Fe de la Laguna recognized that the attention Salud has received by people throughout the world has increased tourism for the town. Gabriela Gabriel Fabián, a potter of the town, noted that "It has benefited us because many more tourists come. This town is known because of the lady's fame, they buy our artwork, everything we do and figures of her."


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: While the production team at Disney and Pixar have recognized that they "based the Rivera family – a multigenerational matriarchy headed by Miguel's formidable grandmother – on real-world families with whom they embedded while visiting the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Guanajuato between 2011 and 2013," they have not acknowledged Salud's contribution to the film. Co-director Adrian Molina stated, "not only is ["Coco"] based in a real place, in Mexico, but it's based in real traditions, so we knew it was very important to do the research, to get every detail recorded, so that when we get back to Pixar and we start deciding what is this town going to look like, what is this grandmother going to wear, what kind of dancing and music are they going to listen to, it can all come from an informed place." However, Salud remains unmentioned in all reports Disney and Pixar have made regarding inspiration for the film.


title: Coco (2017 film)

text: Since the film's release, Salud reported that tourists have visited her home, referring to her as "Mamá Coco". In response, she replied, "Yes, but ["Mamá Coco's"] not my name. [The producers] chose that name. And now all the people who come and visit tell us that's my name. But I tell them no, it's not my name. My name is María de la Salud." Before the film's release, Salud was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and depended on oxygen tanks to breathe. Salud's family had expressed that they "aren't looking to receive royalties, or money, despite [her] need to recharge her oxygen tank every two days." However, they asked "that the company acknowledge her contribution" to the film, which has yet to occur. Salud died on October 16, 2022, aged 109.


title: Utah

text: Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its west by Nevada. Utah also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast. Of the fifty U.S. states, Utah is the 13th-largest by area; with a population over three million, it is the 30th-most-populous and 11th-least-densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two areas: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which is home to roughly two-thirds of the population and includes the capital city, Salt Lake City; and Washington County in the southwest, with more than 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin.


title: Utah

text: Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups such as the ancient Puebloans, Navajo and Ute. The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in the mid-16th century, though the region's difficult geography and harsh climate made it a peripheral part of New Spain and later Mexico. Even while it was Mexican territory, many of Utah's earliest settlers were American, particularly Mormons fleeing marginalization and persecution from the United States. Following the Mexican–American War in 1848, the region was annexed by the U.S., becoming part of the Utah Territory, which included what is now Colorado and Nevada. Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah's admission as a state; only after the outlawing of polygamy was it admitted in 1896 as the 45th.


title: Utah

text: People from Utah are known as Utahns. Slightly over half of all Utahns are Mormons, the vast majority of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which has its world headquarters in Salt Lake City; Utah is the only state where a majority of the population belongs to a single church. The LDS Church greatly influences Utahn culture, politics, and daily life, though since the 1990s the state has become more religiously diverse as well as secular.


title: Utah

text: Utah has a highly diversified economy, with major sectors including transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, and tourism. Utah has been one of the fastest growing states since 2000, with the 2020 U.S. census confirming the fastest population growth in the nation since 2010. St. George was the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah ranks among the overall best states in metrics such as healthcare, governance, education, and infrastructure. It has the 14th-highest median average income and the least income inequality of any U.S. state. Over time and influenced by climate change, droughts in Utah have been increasing in frequency and severity, putting a further strain on Utah's water security and impacting the state’s economy.


title: Utah

text: The name "Utah" is said to derive from the name of the Ute tribe, meaning 'people of the mountains'. However, no such word actually exists in the Utes' language, and the Utes refer to themselves as . The meaning of "Utes" as 'the mountain people' has been attributed to the neighboring Pueblo Indians, as well as to the Apache word , which means 'one that is higher up' or 'those that are higher up'. In Spanish it was pronounced ; subsequently English-speaking people may have adapted the word as "Utah".


title: Utah

text: Thousands of years before the arrival of European explorers, the Ancestral Puebloans and the Fremont people lived in what is now known as Utah, some of which spoke languages of the Uto-Aztecan group. Ancestral Pueblo peoples built their homes through excavations in mountains, and the Fremont people built houses of straw before disappearing from the region around the 15th century.


title: Utah

text: Another group of Native Americans, the Navajo, settled in the region around the 18th century. In the mid-18th century, other Uto-Aztecan tribes, including the Goshute, the Paiute, the Shoshone, and the Ute people, also settled in the region. These five groups were present when the first European explorers arrived.


title: Utah

text: The southern Utah region was explored by the Spanish in 1540, led by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, while looking for the legendary Cíbola. A group led by two Catholic priests—sometimes called the Domínguez–Escalante expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the coast of California. The expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. The Spanish made further explorations in the region but were not interested in colonizing the area because of its desert nature. In 1821, the year Mexico achieved its independence from Spain, the region became known as part of its territory of Alta California.


title: Utah

text: European trappers and fur traders explored some areas of Utah in the early 19th century from Canada and the United States. The city of Provo, Utah, was named for one Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah, was named after Peter Skene Ogden, a Canadian explorer who traded furs in the Weber Valley.


title: Utah

text: In late 1824, Jim Bridger became the first known English-speaking person to sight the Great Salt Lake. Due to the high salinity of its waters, he thought he had found the Pacific Ocean; he subsequently learned this body of water was a giant salt lake. After the discovery of the lake, hundreds of American and Canadian traders and trappers established trading posts in the region. In the 1830s, thousands of migrants traveling from the Eastern United States to the American West began to make stops in the region of the Great Salt Lake, then known as Lake Youta.


title: Utah

text: Following the death of Joseph Smith in 1844, Brigham Young, as president of the Quorum of the Twelve, became the leader of the LDS Church in Nauvoo, Illinois. To address the growing conflicts between his people and their neighbors, Young agreed with Illinois Governor Thomas Ford in October 1845 that the Mormons would leave by the following year.


title: Utah

text: Young and the first group of Mormon pioneers reached the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. Over the next 22 years, more than 70,000 pioneers crossed the plains and settled in Utah. For the first few years, Brigham Young and the thousands of early settlers of Salt Lake City struggled to survive. The arid desert land was deemed by the Mormons as desirable as a place where they could practice their religion without harassment.


title: Utah

text: Settlers buried thirty-six Native Americans in one grave after an outbreak of measles occurred during the winter of 1847.


title: Utah

text: The first group of settlers brought African slaves with them, making Utah the only place in the western United States to have African slavery. Three slaves, Green Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby, came west with the first group of settlers in 1847. The settlers also began to purchase Indian slaves in the well-established Indian slave trade, as well as enslaving Indian prisoners of war.


title: Utah

text: Utah was Mexican territory when the first pioneers arrived in 1847. Early in the Mexican–American War in late 1846, the United States had taken control of New Mexico and California. The entire Southwest became U.S. territory upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848. The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on March 11. Learning that California and New Mexico were applying for statehood, the settlers of the Utah area (originally having planned to petition for territorial status) applied for statehood with an ambitious plan for a State of Deseret.


title: Utah

text: The Mormon settlements provided pioneers for other settlements in the West. Salt Lake City became the hub of a "far-flung commonwealth" of Mormon settlements. With new church converts coming from the East and around the world, Church leaders often assigned groups of church members as missionaries to establish other settlements throughout the West. They developed irrigation to support fairly large pioneer populations along Utah's Wasatch front (Salt Lake City, Bountiful and Weber Valley, and Provo and Utah Valley). Throughout the remainder of the 19th century, Mormon pioneers established hundreds of other settlements in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, California, Canada, and Mexico—including in Las Vegas, Nevada; Franklin, Idaho (the first European settlement in Idaho); San Bernardino, California; Mesa, Arizona; Star Valley, Wyoming; and Carson Valley, Nevada.


title: Utah

text: Prominent settlements in Utah included St. George, Logan, and Manti (where settlers completed the LDS Church's first three temples in Utah, each started after but finished many years before the larger and better known temple built in Salt Lake City was completed in 1893), as well as Parowan, Cedar City, Bluff, Moab, Vernal, Fillmore (which served as the territorial capital between 1850 and 1856), Nephi, Levan, Spanish Fork, Springville, Provo Bench (now Orem), Pleasant Grove, American Fork, Lehi, Sandy, Murray, Jordan, Centerville, Farmington, Huntsville, Kaysville, Grantsville, Tooele, Roy, Brigham City, and many other smaller towns and settlements. Young had an expansionist's view of the territory that he and the Mormon pioneers were settling, calling it Deseret—which according to the Book of Mormon was an ancient word for "honeybee". This is symbolized by the beehive on the Utah flag, and the state's motto, "Industry".


title: Utah

text: The Utah Territory was much smaller than the proposed state of Deseret, but it still contained all of the present states of Nevada and Utah as well as pieces of modern Wyoming and Colorado. It was created with the Compromise of 1850, and Fillmore, named after President Millard Fillmore, was designated the capital. The territory was given the name Utah after the Ute tribe of Native Americans. Salt Lake City replaced Fillmore as the territorial capital in 1856.


title: Utah

text: By 1850, there were around 100 black people in the territory, the majority of whom were slaves. In Salt Lake County, 26 slaves were counted. In 1852, the territorial legislature passed the Act in Relation to Service and the Act for the relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners formally legalizing slavery in the territory. Slavery was abolished in the territory during the Civil War.


title: Utah

text: In 1850, Salt Lake City sent out a force known as the Nauvoo Legion and engaged the Timpanogos in the Battle at Fort Utah.


title: Utah

text: Disputes between the Mormon inhabitants and the U.S. government intensified due to the practice of plural marriage, or polygamy, among members of the LDS Church. The Mormons were still pushing for the establishment of a State of Deseret with the new borders of the Utah Territory. Most, if not all, of the members of the U.S. government opposed the polygamous practices of the Mormons.


title: Utah

text: Members of the LDS Church were viewed as un-American and rebellious when news of their polygamous practices spread. In 1857, particularly heinous accusations of abdication of government and general immorality were leveled by former associate justice William W. Drummond, among others. The detailed reports of life in Utah caused the administration of James Buchanan to send a secret military "expedition" to Utah. When the supposed rebellion should be quelled, Alfred Cumming would take the place of Brigham Young as territorial governor. The resulting conflict is known as the Utah War, nicknamed "Buchanan's Blunder" by the Mormon leaders.


title: Utah

text: In September 1857, about 120 American settlers of the Baker–Fancher wagon train, en route to California from Arkansas, were murdered by Utah Territorial Militia and some Paiute Native Americans in the Mountain Meadows massacre.


title: Utah

text: Before troops led by Albert Sidney Johnston entered the territory, Brigham Young ordered all residents of Salt Lake City to evacuate southward to Utah Valley and sent out the Nauvoo Legion to delay the government's advance. Although wagons and supplies were burned, eventually the troops arrived in 1858, and Young surrendered official control to Cumming, although most subsequent commentators claim that Young retained true power in the territory. A steady stream of governors appointed by the president quit the position, often citing the traditions of their supposed territorial government. By agreement with Young, Johnston established Camp Floyd, away from Salt Lake City, to the southwest.


title: Utah

text: Salt Lake City was the last link of the First Transcontinental Telegraph, completed in October 1861. Brigham Young was among the first to send a message, along with Abraham Lincoln and other officials.


title: Utah

text: Because of the American Civil War, federal troops were pulled out of Utah Territory in 1861. This was a boon to the local economy as the army sold everything in camp for pennies on the dollar before marching back east to join the war. The territory was then left in LDS hands until Patrick E. Connor arrived with a regiment of California volunteers in 1862. Connor established Fort Douglas just east of Salt Lake City and encouraged his people to discover mineral deposits to bring more non-Mormons into the territory. Minerals were discovered in Tooele County and miners began to flock to the territory.


title: Utah

text: Beginning in 1865, Utah's Black Hawk War developed into the deadliest conflict in the territory's history. Chief Antonga Black Hawk died in 1870, but fights continued to break out until additional federal troops were sent in to suppress the Ghost Dance of 1872. The war is unique among Indian Wars because it was a three-way conflict, with mounted Timpanogos Utes led by Antonga Black Hawk fighting federal and LDS authorities.


title: Utah

text: On May 10, 1869, the First transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake. The railroad brought increasing numbers of people into the territory and several influential businesspeople made fortunes there.


title: Utah

text: During the 1870s and 1880s laws were passed to punish polygamists due, in part, to stories from Utah. Notably, Ann Eliza Young—tenth wife to divorce Brigham Young, women's advocate, national lecturer and author of "Wife No.19 or My Life of Bondage" and Mr. and Mrs. Fanny Stenhouse, authors of "The Rocky Mountain Saints" (T. B. H. Stenhouse, 1873) and "Tell It All: My Life in Mormonism" (Fanny Stenhouse, 1875). Both Ann Eliza and Fanny testify to the happiness of the very early Church members before polygamy. They independently published their books in 1875. These books and the lectures of Ann Eliza Young have been credited with the United States Congress passage of anti-polygamy laws by newspapers throughout the United States as recorded in "The Ann Eliza Young Vindicator", a pamphlet which detailed Ms Young's travels and warm reception throughout her lecture tour.


title: Utah

text: T. B. H. Stenhouse, former Utah Mormon polygamist, Mormon missionary for thirteen years and a Salt Lake City newspaper owner, finally left Utah and wrote "The Rocky Mountain Saints". His book gives a witnessed account of life in Utah, both the good and the bad. He finally left Utah and Mormonism after financial ruin occurred when Brigham Young sent Stenhouse to relocate to Ogden, Utah, according to Stenhouse, to take over his thriving pro-Mormon "Salt Lake Telegraph" newspaper. In addition to these testimonies, "The Confessions of John D. Lee", written by John D. Lee—alleged "Scape goat" for the Mountain Meadow Massacre—also came out in 1877. The corroborative testimonies coming out of Utah from Mormons and former Mormons influenced Congress and the people of the United States.


title: Utah

text: In the 1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church banned polygamy. When Utah applied for statehood again, it was accepted. One of the conditions for granting Utah statehood was that a ban on polygamy be written into the state constitution. This was a condition required of other western states that were admitted into the Union later. Statehood was officially granted on January 4, 1896.


title: Utah

text: Beginning in the early 20th century, with the establishment of such national parks as Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park, Utah became known for its natural beauty. Southern Utah became a popular filming spot for arid, rugged scenes featured in the popular mid-century western film genre. From such films, most US residents recognize such natural landmarks as Delicate Arch and "the Mittens" of Monument Valley. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, with the construction of the Interstate highway system, accessibility to the southern scenic areas was made easier.


title: Utah

text: Since the establishment of Alta Ski Area in 1939 and the subsequent development of several ski resorts in the state's mountains, Utah's skiing has become world-renowned. The dry, powdery snow of the Wasatch Range is considered some of the best skiing in the world (the state license plate once claimed "the Greatest Snow on Earth"). Salt Lake City won the bid for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, and this served as a great boost to the economy. The ski resorts have increased in popularity, and many of the Olympic venues built along the Wasatch Front continue to be used for sporting events. Preparation for the Olympics spurred the development of the light-rail system in the Salt Lake Valley, known as TRAX, and the re-construction of the freeway system around the city.


title: Utah

text: In 1957, Utah created the Utah State Parks Commission with four parks. Today, Utah State Parks manages 43 parks and several undeveloped areas totaling over of land and more than of water. Utah's state parks are scattered throughout Utah, from Bear Lake State Park at the Utah/Idaho border to Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum deep in the Four Corners region and everywhere in between. Utah State Parks is also home to the state's off highway vehicle office, state boating office and the trails program.


title: Utah

text: During the late 20th century, the state grew quickly. In the 1970s growth was phenomenal in the suburbs of the Wasatch Front. Sandy was one of the fastest-growing cities in the country at that time. Today, many areas of Utah continue to see boom-time growth. Northern Davis, southern and western Salt Lake, Summit, eastern Tooele, Utah, Wasatch, and Washington counties are all growing very quickly. Management of transportation and urbanization are major issues in politics, as development consumes agricultural land and wilderness areas and transportation is a major reason for poor air quality in Utah.


title: Utah

text: Utah is known for its natural diversity and is home to features ranging from arid deserts with sand dunes to thriving pine forests in mountain valleys. It is a rugged and geographically diverse state at the convergence of three distinct geological regions: the Rocky Mountains, the Great Basin, and the Colorado Plateau.


title: Utah

text: Utah covers an area of . It is one of the Four Corners states and is bordered by Idaho in the north, Wyoming in the north and east, by Colorado in the east, at a single point by New Mexico to the southeast, by Arizona in the south, and by Nevada in the west. Only three U.S. states (Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming) have exclusively latitude and longitude lines as boundaries.


title: Utah

text: One of Utah's defining characteristics is the variety of its terrain. Running down the middle of the state's northern third is the Wasatch Range, which rises to heights of almost above sea level. Utah is home to world-renowned ski resorts made popular by light, fluffy snow and winter storms that regularly dump up to three feet of it overnight. In the state's northeastern section, running east to west, are the Uinta Mountains, which rise to heights of over . The highest point in the state, Kings Peak, at , lies within the Uinta Mountains.


title: Utah

text: At the western base of the Wasatch Range is the Wasatch Front, a series of valleys and basins that are home to the most populous parts of the state. It stretches approximately from Brigham City at the north end to Nephi at the south end. Approximately 75 percent of the state's population lives in this corridor, and population growth is rapid.


title: Utah

text: Western Utah is mostly arid desert with a basin and range topography. Small mountain ranges and rugged terrain punctuate the landscape. The Bonneville Salt Flats are an exception, being comparatively flat as a result of once forming the bed of ancient Lake Bonneville. Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake, Sevier Lake, and Rush Lake are all remnants of this ancient freshwater lake, which once covered most of the eastern Great Basin. West of the Great Salt Lake, stretching to the Nevada border, lies the arid Great Salt Lake Desert. One exception to this aridity is Snake Valley, which is (relatively) lush due to large springs and wetlands fed from groundwater derived from snow melt in the Snake Range, Deep Creek Range, and other tall mountains to the west of Snake Valley. Great Basin National Park is just over the Nevada state line in the southern Snake Range. One of western Utah's most impressive, but least visited attractions is Notch Peak, the tallest limestone cliff in North America, located west of Delta.


title: Utah

text: Much of the scenic southern and southeastern landscape (specifically the Colorado Plateau region) is sandstone, specifically Kayenta sandstone and Navajo sandstone. The Colorado River and its tributaries wind their way through the sandstone, creating some of the world's most striking and wild terrain (the area around the confluence of the Colorado and Green Rivers was the last to be mapped in the lower 48 United States). Wind and rain have also sculpted the soft sandstone over millions of years. Canyons, gullies, arches, pinnacles, buttes, bluffs, and mesas are the common sights throughout south-central and southeast Utah.


title: Utah

text: This terrain is the central feature of protected state and federal parks such as Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, and Zion national parks, Cedar Breaks, Grand Staircase–Escalante, Hovenweep, and Natural Bridges national monuments, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (site of the popular tourist destination, Lake Powell), Dead Horse Point and Goblin Valley state parks, and Monument Valley. The Navajo Nation also extends into southeastern Utah. Southeastern Utah is also punctuated by the remote, but lofty La Sal, Abajo, and Henry mountain ranges.


title: Utah

text: Eastern (northern quarter) Utah is a high-elevation area covered mostly by plateaus and basins, particularly the Tavaputs Plateau and San Rafael Swell, which remain mostly inaccessible, and the Uinta Basin, where the majority of eastern Utah's population lives. Economies are dominated by mining, oil shale, oil, and natural gas-drilling, ranching, and recreation. Much of eastern Utah is part of the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. The most popular destination within northeastern Utah is Dinosaur National Monument near Vernal.


title: Utah

text: Southwestern Utah is the lowest and hottest spot in Utah. It is known as Utah's Dixie because early settlers were able to grow some cotton there. Beaverdam Wash in far southwestern Utah is the lowest point in the state, at . The northernmost portion of the Mojave Desert is also located in this area. Dixie is quickly becoming a popular recreational and retirement destination, and the population is growing rapidly. Although the Wasatch Mountains end at Mount Nebo near Nephi, a complex series of mountain ranges extends south from the southern end of the range down the spine of Utah. Just north of Dixie and east of Cedar City is the state's highest ski resort, Brian Head.


title: Utah

text: Like most of the western and southwestern states, the federal government owns much of the land in Utah. Over 70 percent of the land is either BLM land, Utah State Trustland, or U.S. National Forest, U.S. National Park, U.S. National Monument, National Recreation Area or U.S. Wilderness Area. Utah is the only state where every county contains some national forest.


title: Utah

text: Utah features a dry, semi-arid to desert climate, although its many mountains feature a large variety of climates, with the highest points in the Uinta Mountains being above the timberline. The dry weather is a result of the state's location in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada in California. The eastern half of the state lies in the rain shadow of the Wasatch Mountains. The primary source of precipitation for the state is the Pacific Ocean, with the state usually lying in the path of large Pacific storms from October to May. In summer, the state, especially southern and eastern Utah, lies in the path of monsoon moisture from the Gulf of California.


title: Utah

text: Most of the lowland areas receive less than of precipitation annually, although the I-15 corridor, including the densely populated Wasatch Front, receives approximately . The Great Salt Lake Desert is the driest area of the state, with less than . Snowfall is common in all but the far southern valleys. Although St. George receives only about per year, Salt Lake City sees about , enhanced by the lake-effect snow from the Great Salt Lake, which increases snowfall totals to the south, southeast, and east of the lake.


title: Utah

text: Some areas of the Wasatch Range in the path of the lake-effect receive up to per year. This micro climate of enhanced snowfall from the Great Salt Lake spans the entire proximity of the lake. The cottonwood canyons adjacent to Salt Lake City are located in the right position to receive more precipitation from the lake. The consistently deep powder snow led Utah's ski industry to adopt the slogan "the Greatest Snow on Earth" in the 1980s. In the winter, temperature inversions are a common phenomenon across Utah's low basins and valleys, leading to thick haze and fog that can last for weeks at a time, especially in the Uintah Basin. Although at other times of year its air quality is good, winter inversions give Salt Lake City some of the worst wintertime pollution in the country.