Procession

There were other local processions connected with the primitive worship of the country people, which remained unchanged, but they were eventually overshadowed by the popular piety of the Church.

Such were those of the Ambarvalia, Robigalia, which were essentially rustic festivals, lustrations of the fields, consisting in a procession round the spot to be purified, leading the sacrificial victims with prayers, hymns, and ceremonies to protect the young crops from evil influence.

[4] In this sense it appears to be used by Pope Leo I,[5] while in the version by Dionysius Exiguus of the 17th canon of the Council of Laodicea (about 363–364) Ancient Greek: σονάξεσι, is translated by processionibus.

So, too, Gregory the Great[15] writes to the Sicilian bishops to hold processions to prevent a threatened invasion of Sicily.

A famous instance of these penitential litanies is the litania septiformis ordered by Gregory the Great in the year 590, when Rome had been inundated and pestilence had followed.

[1] In this litany seven processions, of clergy, laymen, monks, nuns, matrons, the poor, and children respectively, starting from seven different churches, proceeded to hear mass at St. Maria Maggiore.

Mai., and consisted in a procession leaving Rome by the Flaminian gate, and proceeding by way of the Milvian bridge to a sanctuary at the 5th milestone of the Via Claudia, where the flamen quirinalis sacrificed a dog and a sheep to avert blight (robigo) from the crops.

[19] The litania major followed the same route as far as the Milvian bridge, when it turned off and returned to St Peter's, where mass was celebrated.

This was already established as an annual festival by 598, as is shown by a document of Gregory the Great[20] that inculcates the duty of celebrating litaniam, quae major ab omnibus appellatur.

In the Ambrosian rite the rogations take place after Ascension, and in the Spanish on the Thursday to Saturday after Whitsuntide, and in November (Synod of Girona, 517).

Though 18th-century Church reformers made strides to simplify the liturgical year and its complex web of holidays, festivals and processions, these practices remained as essential to Catholic ritual traditions in 1750 as they had been in the 15th century.

[25] One of the effects of the Tridentine reform was to ensure that the variety of devotions that sprang up in ecclesiastically fragmented parts of Europe were connected with the rituals of the Catholic Church.

The relic would be carried by the townspeople for processions through their agricultural fields integrating a Counter-Reformation devotional theme with the ancient fertility rites of the townsfolk's rural religion.

Last of all, when this army of attendants had gone by, a great gold-topped palanquin with phoenixes embroidered on its yellow curtains slowly advanced on the shoulders of eight eunuch bearers.

The Lord Mayor's Show in London has long featured displays by the city's official trade guilds.

Such as ancient Roman triumphs, the durbar processions of India, and modern reviewing of the troops by generals and heads of state.

Return From Vienna, a painting by Jozef Brandt, shows war booty taken from the Turks being escorted into eastern Europe by soldiers.

Some processions are arranged for entertainment, purely for fun, such as those of community organizations and friendly societies, so popular in Great Britain and the United States of America.

[30] In a narrower sense of going forth, proceeding, the term is used in the technical language of theology in the phrase Procession of the Holy Ghost, expressing the relation of the Third Person in the Triune Godhead to the Father and the Son.

), and they are classified in the following way: There are also processions of honor, for instance to meet a royal personage, or the bishop on his first entry into his diocese (Pontif.

The observance or variation of the discipline belongs to the Sacred Congregation of Rites; in pontifical processions, which are regulated by the masters of the ceremonies (magistri ceremoniarum pontificalium), these points are decided by the chief cardinal deacon.

Typically the outside of the church is circled thrice; however, some processions proceed to a designated place where a ceremony, e.g., a baptism or burial, is performed.

The Reformation abolished in all Protestant countries those processions associated with the doctrine of transubstantiation (Corpus Christi); the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, according to the 28th Article of Religion of the Church of England was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshiped.

The stern simplicity of Calvinism, indeed, would not tolerate religious processions of any kind, and from the Reformed Churches they vanished altogether.

[citation needed] The more conservative temper of the Anglican and Lutheran communions, however, suffered the retention of such processions as did not conflict with the reformed doctrines, though even in these Churches they met with opposition and tended after a while to fall into disuse.

[33] In Ritual Notes, an Anglo-Catholic liturgical manual, it is stated that "A solemn procession as part of the ceremony proper to the occasion, is ordered to be held respectively at Candlemas; on Palm Sunday; at the Rogations (i.e. on April 25th and the three days preceding Ascension); and on Corpus Christi ..." "A procession is a distinct act of worship in itself, though it is desirable (and accords with ancient practice) that it should have a definite purpose, such as to commemorate some notable event, or to honour the Blessed Sacrament".

At present funeral processions survive in general only in the country districts; the processional cross or crucifix is still carried.