PROCESSION, Religious, a solemn march of the clergy and people, attended with reli gious ceremonies, prayers, singing, etc., in the churches or streets of a town for the purpose of returning thanks for some divine blessing, petitioning for assistance in some great calam ity, celebrating the consecration or visitation of church dignitaries, or drawing attention to some great doctrine of the Church. The prac tice of holding such processions is usually said to have been introduced into the Christian Church in the reign of Constantine. The most celebrated processions which now take place in the Roman Catholic Church are those of the eucharist on Corpus Christi day, and during the week in which it occurs. They owe their origin to John xxii. The processions in honor of Saint Mark and those on Candlemas and Palm Sunday are said to have been instituted by Gregory the Great. Instances of celebrations of this nature are to be found among the Jews in the Old Testament, and as a part of the sym bolical worship of nature they were in use among the ancient heathens; thus they formed solemn processions about the fields, which had been sowed, and sprinkled them with holy water to increase their fertility, and to defend them from injuries. The festivals in honor of
Bacchus, Ceres, Diana, and other divinities, among the Greeks and Romans, were solem nized with processions, in which the images of the gods were borne about; and similar rites are still found among most heathens. Among the Buddhists these ceremonials are especially imposing. The procession which accompanies the Emperor of China when he goes to offer sacrifices to an idol in some great pagoda is one of the most gorgeous description. In a more restricted sense the term is applied to the solemn entrance of the clergy and their as sistants (choir, etc.) into the church proper for the purpose of holding a religious service, or of their departure to the sacristy after the serv ice. Consult Eveillon, J., 'De Processionibus Ecclesiasticis' (Paris 1641) ; Gretser, J., 'De Catholicz Ecclesiie Sacris Processionibus' (Ingolstadt 1600) ; Vatar, D., 'Des Proces sions de (Paris 1705) ; Wordsworth, C., (Ceremonies and Processions of the Cathe dral Church of Salisbury) (Cambridge 1901).