Papal regalia and insignia authority. Modern popes bear the Papal ferula, a staff topped by a crucifix, rather than a crozier, a bent pastoral staff styled after a shepherd's crook. The use of the papal ferula is an ancient custom, established before the thirteenth century, though some popes since that time, notably Pope Leo XIII, have used a crozier-like staff. The use of other items of papal regalia has been discontinued, though they have not been abolished. The "Sedia gestatoria", a portable throne or armchair carried by twelve footmen ("palafrenieri") in red uniforms was accompanied by two attendants bearing the "flabella", large ceremonial fans
Religion in the Soviet Union were traditionally responsible for maintaining synagogues. They created a special Jewish section of the party, whose tasks included propaganda against Jewish clergy and religion. To offset Jewish national and religious aspirations, and to reflect the Jewish national movement's role in the socialist movement of the Russian Empire (for example, Trotsky was first a member of the Jewish Bund, not the Social Democratic Labour Party), an alternative to the Land of Israel was established in 1934. The Jewish Autonomous Oblast, created in 1928 by Stalin, with Birobidzhan in the Russian Far East as its administrative center, was to become a "Soviet