Ceremonial - Definition and Overview

A ceremony is an activity, infused with ritual significance, performed on a certain occasion. For example, the Japanese tea ceremony was frequently held as a ritual of hospitality at the arrival of a guest.

Traditionally, a ceremony may mark a rite of passage in a personal human career, marking the significance of (for example):

• birth
• initiation
• puberty
• social adulthood
• marriage
• death
• burial
• baptism

See also: human condition, initiation rite.

Other, society-wide ceremonies may mark annual or seasonal or recurrent events like:

• vernal equinox
• winter solstice
• weekly Sabbath day
• inauguration of an elected office-holder
• occasions in a liturgical year or "feasts" in a calendar of saints

Yet other ceremonies underscore the importance of irregular special occasions, such as:

• coronation of a monarch
• victory in battle

Often ceremonies have a physical display or theatrical component: dance, a procession, the laying on of hands. But even greater importance usually attaches to a declaratory verbal pronouncement which may explain or cap the occasion, for instance:

• I now pronounce you man and wife.
• Happy New Year!
• I swear to serve and defend the nation ...

Both physical and verbal components of a ceremony may become part of a liturgy.

See also: gift