Everyman

Mr Yamaguchi is a typical Tokyo 'salaryman': workaholic, conformist and, like most Japanese, uninterested in religion. When his wife discovers he's been having an affair, and tries to kill herself, their world is thrown into confusion. In search of help, Mrs Yamaguchi joins Shinnyuen, one of the new evangelistic Buddhist sects that have grown up in the post-war period. She becomes a 'born-again Buddhist'. Mr Yamaguchi is horrified. Buddhism for him is reserved for funeral services; he distrusts Shinnyuen's new-fangled style. This film traces what happens to the Yamaguchis' marriage, and looks at how the new sects are answering the spiritual needs of people who have suffered the flip-side of the economic miracle.

A religious powerhouse, a social centre, a springboard for artistic and political activity: in its heyday, the Nonconformist chapel dominated Welsh life. In mining communities like Nantymoel, at the head of the Ogmore Valley, it was chapel three times on a Sunday and a week filled with temperance meetings, choir practices and 'penny readings'. But now the glory has departed. Saron and Gilead chapels lie derelict. Hope is a furniture showroom. Bethany keeps only its vestry and, on Sunday mornings, just two or three of Dinam's 850 pews are occupied. And yet as those few ageing voices are raised in harmony in the old language, there's a poignant echo of Sundays when this place was full. So what sustains the failing remnant in their determination to remember the Sabbath Day? Everyman visits Nantymoel to find out.

When white missionaries converted black tribes in South Africa to Christianity 200 years ago, they created for their converts an abiding dilemma. Should black Christians today put their trust in Christian forgiveness and peaceful negotiation, or does their belief in the rightness of overcoming apartheid justify militancy? This film explores that tension. The dilemma leads many black Christians to rebel against their Church's conservatism and look for a new form of faith. Some of them go back to their African tribal roots to mark their separation from 'white' Christianity. How far should they go towards violent resistance? Or does Christian teaching on forgiveness forbid the overthrow of oppression?

In the Middle Ages, people believed that light was the very embodiment of God, and they celebrated his presence with the breathtaking splendour of their stained-glass windows. Very little is known about the men who made them. Yet they are still a source of inspiration to modern craftsmen, like those working on the huge unfinished cathedral of St John the Divine in New York. For the first time, a film camera has recorded for Everyman the magical beauty of the great rose windows at Chartres Cathedral from close at hand. And the great composer, Olivier Messiaen , at the organ of the Trinite church in Paris, talks of the special place light and stained glass have in his faith and his music.

In America, the Gospel is preached over the television airwaves by evangelists like Jimmy Swaggart , eager to win the hearts, minds and dollars of their audience for Christ. Can it, will it happen here? Jim Woolsey hopes so. He has sold the Jimmy Swaggart telecast to 148 countries. Now he wants to bring it to Britain. Hard on his heels are fervent British companies, with their own productions, who believe the BBC and IBA have sold viewers short on religion. Until now the costs have been too high for individual enterprise. But will the growth of cable and satellite mean the price is now right for the prophets of the electronic Gospel to enter the sitting rooms of the nation? Rosemary Hartill examines religious television today and asks whether change is in the air.

Introduced by Prunella Scales In the 16th century Mrs Cranmer , one of the earliest parsons' wives, was rumoured to have hidden in a box whenever she went out, for fear of embarrassing her husband. Four centuries later, clergy wives are finding life just as difficult. The fictional stereotype still dominates public perceptions: the dowdy figure who, as well as running her own home on a shoestring, teaches Sunday school, arranges flowers, organises fetes, runs the Mothers' Union and provides endless cups of tea and a sympathetic ear. In the past, wives have accepted their role as their husband's unpaid curate. But times are changing. Everyman meets five clergy wives who talk about the reality behind the stereotype.

On 4 April 1968 Martin Luther King was shot dead on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. The night before he died, he spoke of his vision of 'the promised land of justice and freedom' for black Americans. Twenty years later, King's dream has turned sour. Montgomery, Alabama was at the centre of the civil rights struggle in the 50s and 60s. Indeed it all began there, with the famous 381-day bus boycott. led by Dr King. Today much has changed. There are black judges, lawyers, politicians. But Montgomery is still an oppressive, divided city. Many of the advances of the past 20 years have backfired against the black community. Many of the changes are skin deep. Through the eyes of an assortment of Montgomery's black citizens, this film explores the current tensions and frustrations, hopes and fears, and shows that King's vision remains more an inspiration than a reality.

'We are a tribe', claims a kibbutz veteran with pride. If so, it is a most astonishing tribe. It has no poverty, no snobbery, no class, no crime, no unemployment and no homelessness. It is a society of one for all and all for one. It ploughs all its profits back into social security and the common kitty. But in the past year or two the kibbutz movement has been plunged into crisis: partly economic, and partly the result of a widespread loss of confidence from within. The tribe has 128,000 members and has been going for nearly 80 years. Forty years ago it was vital to the setting up of the state of Israel. But in the tensions of today, can it survive?

Jeanette Roberts is the mother to 42 children. She is a tough East Ender with little money. She has never married or had children of her own. Her adoptive family are the abused, the neglected, the physically or mentally handicapped, the orphaned or the unacceptable. Jeanette was abused in her own childhood, but through sheer force of spirit she changed the course of her life. Breaking the Chain describes the positive story of what can be done to heal damaged children and build relationships where all else has failed.

People Dublin is celebrating its 1,000th birthday. The Irish are opening their doors and their hearts to the world. But hidden away from the celebrations, life in Ireland is harsh. One in five people is unemployed. Homelessness is on the increase as more and more Irish migrate to Dublin. Poverty is writ large. In a profoundly Catholic country, renowned for sending missionaries to the Third World, the Irish are suddenly finding the poor are on their own doorstep. Everyman reports from Ireland on the individual members of the Church who are responding in unexpected ways to the problems of Ireland's hidden people.

It's election year in the United States and middle America is worried: worried about the dramatic increase in drug abuse, abortion, AIDS and violent crime, a rising tide which is no longer just confined to the big cities. America is a deeply Christian country - 70 million Americans claim to be 'born again' - and many think that the only solution to this moral vacuum is to make sure God is returned to centre stage in American politics. Many others are fighting hard to maintain the constitutional separation of Church and State. Filmed against the colourful back-drop of the Presidential election, this programme explores the phenomenon of moral America on the march, and meets the two Christian candidates. Pat Robertson and Jesse Jackson , who, from opposite ends of the political spectrum, are addressing the nation's moral misgivings.

The 'monsters' are the dark secrets which lurk in the minds of children who've been sexually abused. Madge Bray 's ambition is to get rid of the 'monsters', and see the children drawing rainbows again. Through play (which is how all small children communicate) and through painting and drawing, she helps them to find the language to describe those dark secrets. Madge Bray is a therapist who specialises in child abuse. She also helps run the only course in the country for other professionals - social workers, police, doctors, foster-parents - who have to deal with the problem. The course helps them explore, through role play, the terrible dilemmas they have to face in dealing with abused children. They also learn, through Madge Bray 's remarkable lectures, how to see things from the child's point of view, to speak the child's language, and to begin the process of healing the psychological damage that's been done.

It's been estimated that by the time most American children reach their teens they will have seen over 10,000 deaths in the cinema and on TV. But fiction puts a safe distance between the young and the realities of death. What's more, in the real world, the dying and the dead are removed from the house to the antiseptic confines of hospital and funeral home. As a result, most young people know little about what the death of a loved one means. To remedy this, 'death education' is being included in the curriculum in many schools throughout the United States. From kindergarten to high school, children are being asked to face the facts of death. What should children be told, and when? Everyman talks both to students and to professionals like Elisabeth Kubler-Ross who, through her work in the hospice movement, encounters death every day. Is it right to expose children to the grim face of life's only certainty? Is death a necessary taboo, or can learning about it enrich young lives?

It's 40 years since the last Japanese soldiers surrendered, yet the Karen, Britain's wartime allies, are still fighting in the hills and jungles of Burma. Loyal servants of the Raj, the Karen felt betrayed by the hasty British withdrawal from Burma in 1948 which left power with the Burmese, the traditional enemies of the Karen, and denied them their autonomy. Since then, unrecognised by any nation, they've run their own state, Kawthoolei. They have their own government, they run their own schools and their own army. They are determined to resist Burmese rule. Stories abound of atrocities by the Burmese army. Many thousands of Karen have fled across the border to Thailand, to face rejection and disease. Every year they lose more ground, and their chances of success in their fight diminish further. So what is it that sustains the Karen in their seemingly hopeless struggle?

"It would be analogous to consecrating a meat pie on the altar of God to ordain a woman." These uncompromising words come from Fr Ian Herring, an ordinary Australian vicar. For nearly 2,000 years men have assumed that the role of women in the Church is to support them, not to be their equals. But now all that is changing. In the Anglican Church in the United States women have already been ordained as priests. In England they are practising as deacons, and the question of their full ordination is under active consideration. In Australia in October 1987 the Synod of the Anglican Church took a crucial vote on the subject. This film follows the women who were in the front line of the battle through the last tense stages of their campaign.

"We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth." One thousand years ago, this testimony to the splendour of the Greek Church in Constantinople persuaded the ruler of medieval Russia to choose Orthodox Christianity as the state religion. This choice had profound consequences for the development of Russia, helping to isolate it from the West and contributing to a sense of mystery which is still felt today. The history of the Russian state is inextricably linked with the Orthodox Church. The Church has consistently safeguarded national consciousness, despite centuries of invasions, internal conflict and oppression. This week the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates its millennium. How has it been able to survive when the state has taken on different forms, some alien to its doctrines, and what effect has this had on the Church in Russia?

For much of the past 70 years Christians in the Soviet Union have practised their religion in the face of great hostility. During Stalin's time many priests and believers were imprisoned, victimised and murdered. And under Khrushchev thousands of churches were closed. Today things are changing. Mr Gorbachev 's second revolution - his perestroika - is beginning to reach the Church. Some dissident priests and believers have been allowed out of prison; the supporters of religion are being given a voice in the normally atheist Soviet media; and there is even talk of the state returning some of the powers it removed from the Church after the revolution. But how far will glasnost go? As the Church celebrates the millennium of Christianity in Russia Everyman has been to the Soviet Union to find out what it's like to be a Christian in an atheist world.

First of nine programmes "Time does heal...' affirms the widow of one of the 16 People shot dead by Michael Ryan on 19 August last year in and around the Berkshire market town of Hungerford. Over the past 12 months, Everyman has paid regular visits to Hungerford, making a unique record of the process of grief and the beginnings of recovery in the town. In this specially extended programme, the bereaved and injured talk freely of their pain, anger and bewilderment - and of the emotional changes they've experienced as time has passed. The town has come together for civic events like the Memorial Service, the age-old Hungerford tradition of 'Tutti Day' which celebrates the coming of spring, and the Summer Carnival. What becomes evident as the months unfold is a remarkable story of the courage, resilience and quiet dignity of an English community in the face of tragic, inexplicable loss.

There is no reconciliation if it is not based on truth andjustice. Not the words of a Marxist revolutionary, but of Archbishop Manuel Santos of Concepcion, responding to the harshness of the Pinochet regime in Chile. With many forms of political dissent suppressed, the Roman Catholic Church in Chile has become a leading opponent of the Government. High-ranking clerics, once conservative figures in an increasingly secular society, are now outspoken political critics. The Church-run Vicariate of Solidarity is the foremost human rights organisation in the country. In the Name of God is an award-winning documentary by the Chilean director Patricio Guzman. Made in 1986, it provides a unique view of the work of the Vicariate and the Church, and of the way these institutions have given Chilean people a voice in their fight for democracy.

In 1942 the International Committee of the Red Cross made a dramatic decision: it chose to maintain its philosophy of confidentiality and remain silent about Nazi plans to exterminate the Jews. Why? Everyman has obtained exclusive access to new research about the controversy. Is confidentiality really the necessary price of access to the victims of war? And would the Red Cross do the same today? lain Guest talks to delegates who have faced similar heart-rending decisions in more recent conficts in El Salvador and the Gulf, and finds them facing impossible choices.

First in a three-part series On 16 October 1978, Karol Wojtyla , the Cardinal Archbishop of Krakow in Poland, was elected to the papacy. He was the youngest pope in a century and the first non-Italian in 450 years. He chose the name John Paul n. At the time, outside Poland, little or nothing was known about a man who has since become one of the best known popes in history. Papa Wojtyla goes behind the public face of the papacy to discover the human being. You Could Steal Horses with Wojtyla ... The behind-the-scenes story of how Wojtyla came to be elected, while at the same time tracing his early life and career. Wojtyla himself talks to Richard Denton about his late vocation and his own response to his election.

In the Third World, many Catholic priests are politically active in support of the poor. Latin America is the birthplace of 'liberation theology', seen by some as a misbegotten mixture of Christianity and Marxism. Elsewhere, particularly the United States, there are calls for a Church that would accept homosexuality, the ordination of women, married priests, divorce and contraception. This second film looks at how Wojtyla's papacy deals with some of these problems, at the Vatican's part in maintaining the structure and traditions of the Church, and at why Papa Wojtyla has been described as 'the most adored but the most disobeyed pope in recent history'.

It is perhaps Karol Wojtyla 's greatest departure from papal tradition that he has adopted the role of 'pilgrim pope', travelling, so far, to 77 countries. The third film in the series goes with him on his 37th international pilgrimage - to Uruguay, Bolivia and Paraguay, where Wojtyla must meet General Alfredo Stroessner , the world's longest-surviving dictator, who, after the Second World War, sheltered many of the Nazi criminals who desecrated Wojtyla's homeland.

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there. Santa Claus personifies the spirit of Christmas and embodies all our feelings of joy, faith, goodwill and renewed hope at the turn of the year. It is from the 19th-century American poem A Visit from St Nicholas that our modern image of the jolly, red-robed, gift-bearing Santa has emerged. This poem drew together many European myths and legends surrounding the celebration of the winter solstice; Odin, the Norse god; and St Nicholas , the 4th-century Bishop of Myra. It was syndicated by Harpers magazine and became enormously popular through the illustrations of THOMAS NAST. Everyman traces the evolution of Santa Claus and talks to Sir Yehudi Menuhin , Raymond Briggs , Bruno Bettelheim , Sheila Kitzinger and Count Andrew von Staufer about the magic and mystery of this timeless figure of C