Processions

Processions, as solemn and religious rites, are of very great antiquity. With the Greeks and Romans they took place chiefly on the festivals of Diana, Bacchus, Ceres, and other deities; also before the beginning of the games in the Circus; and in spring, when the fields were sprinkled with holy water, to increase their fertility. The priests went at their head, bearing images of the gods and goddesses to be propitiated, and started either from certain temples or from the Capitol. Among the Jews certain processions around the altar were—and still are to a certain extent—usual on the Feast of Tabernacles; and from them the Mohammedans have adopted their mode of encompassing the sanctuary seven times at Mecca. Processions also form a prominent part of the Buddhist worship. The practice was early introduced into the Christian church, but seems to have been adopted by Chrysostom at Constantinople to counteract the influence of the Arian processions through the streets to their churches outside the walls. Ambrose speaks of them as ancient in his day. During the middle ages processions were arranged on a scale of great magnificence, as at the Corpus Christi Festival. Since the Reformation they have been much less elaborate, especially in mixed countries; but at Vienna, and still more at Munich, the Corpus Christi procession is still magnificent. Processions are either Supplicatory processions or Cross processions, and are either directed to a certain distant place, to some miraculous image or object, or they are confined to the streets of the cities and the churches. Banners, crosses, and images are generally carried in front; the clergy follow; and the people make up the rear, singing hymns or reciting prayers. Processions to beseech the special mercy of God are variously to be described as Litanæ, Rogationes, Stationes, Supplicationes, and Exomologeses; and again, they are to be distinguished as being with or without the Blessed Sacrament, relics, or images of the Virgin or Saints. Some are extraordinary and specially arranged; others are ordinary and fall under the common ritual, as those on Candlemas, Palm Sunday, St Mark's Day, three Rogation days, and at funerals. The Processional is the service-book containing the prayers, hymns, and ceremonial of processions. There is no doubt that, whatever their general intrinsic value, they offer in many instances one of the most strikingly picturesque features of the Roman faith, and that they answer a certain instinctive craving of the multitude. Processions through the streets are frequent in modern life as political and social demonstrations, as during strikes and the like, and, when not decreed dangerous to order or obstructive to traffic, are claimed as a privilege of free-born citizens; and they have been introduced to break the quiet of many English towns and villages as part of the peculiar warfare of the Salvation Army. For extensive pilgrimages, as such, their history and rites, see PILGRIM, MECCA, FESTIVALS, &c.