Word Finder - pilgrimages

definition

A journey made to a sacred place, or a religious journey.

example

In the Muslim faith, the pilgrimage to Mecca is known as the Hajj.

definition

(by extension) A visit to any site revered or associated with a meaningful event.

example

Each year we made a pilgrimage to New York City to visit the pub where we all first met.

The pilgrimages to Rome received their greatest impetus through the inauguration of the so-called Year of Jubilee.

Under the influence of the Cluniac revival, which began in the 10th century, pilgrimages became increasingly frequent; and the goal of pilgrimage was often Jerusalem.

All this went to feed revival, which, founded on fear, refused to see in Jesus Christ anything but a stern judge, and made the Virgin Mother and Anna the "grandmother" the intercessors; which found consolation in pilgrimages from shrine to shrine; which believed in crude miracles, and in the thought that God could be best served within convent walls.

In the 12th century the pilgrimages to St-Gilles are cited as among the most celebrated of the time.

The clergy were bidden to exhort their hearers to the " works of charity, mercy and faith, specially prescribed and commanded in Scripture, and not to repose their trust or affiance in any other works devised by men's phantasies beside Scripture; as in wandering to pilgrimages, offering of money, candles or tapers to images or relics, or kissing or licking the same, saying over a number of beads, not understood or minded on, or in such-like superstition."

The Indians have a habit of consuming a yellowish edible earth containing sulphur; on pilgrimages they obtain images moulded of this earth at the shrines they visit, and eat the images as a prophylactic against disease.

With the introduction of Christianity the ecclesiastical connexion between England and the continent without doubt brought about a large increase in the imports of secular as well as religious objects, and the frequency of pilgrimages by persons of high rank must have had the same effect.

The most important places of resort both for voluntary and involuntary pilgrimages, were still Palestine and Rome.

Save for occasional pilgrimages, including one to Jerusalem in 1373, she remained in Rome till her death on the 23rd of July 1373.

From all centres the leading motives of exploration were probably the same - commercial intercourse, warlike operations, whether resulting in conquest or in flight, religious zeal expressed in pilgrimages or missionary journeys, or, from the other side, the avoidance of persecution, and, more particularly in later years, the advancement of knowledge for its own sake.

Ibn Batuta went by land from Tangier to Cairo, then visited Syria, and performed the pilgrimages to Medina and Mecca.

It is the Church which creates the First Crusade, because the clergy believes in penitentiary pilgrimages, and the war against the Seljuks can be turned into a pilgrimage to the Sepulchre; because, again, it wishes to direct the fighting instinct of the laity, and the consecrating name of Jerusalem provides an unimpeachable channel; above all, because the papacy desires a perfect and universal Church, and a perfect and universal Church must rule in the Holy Land.

But the greatest success was attained when St Bernard - no great believer in pilgrimages, and naturally disposed to doubt the policy of a second Crusade - was induced by the pope to become the preacher of the new movement.

After proving that the secular rulers were free and in duty bound to correct the evils of the Church, Luther sketches a plan for preventing money from going to Italy, for reducing the number of idle, begging monks, harmful pilgrimages and excessive holidays.

Majestie to stablysh Christen quietness " (1536), together with the " Injunctions " of 1536 and 1538, are chiefly noteworthy for their affirmation of almost all the current doctrines of the Catholic Church, except those relating to the papal supremacy, purgatory, images, relics and pilgrimages, and the old rooted distrust of the Bible in the vernacular.

Three visits which he had paid to Italy in his capacity of army chaplain had done much to open his eyes to the worldly character of the papal rule, and it was not long before he began to attack at Einsiedeln the superstitions which attended the great pilgrimages made to that place.

Previous to the dissolution, a rood-screen bearing a gigantic rood, the object of many pilgrimages, stood to the west of the tower.

The chief of the pilgrimages, known as the national pilgrimage, takes place in August.

They always kept up relations of some kind, especially by means of pilgrimages, and it was admitted that in any disputes which might arise with the Eastern Church the pope had the right to speak as representative of the whole of the Western Church.

The name is a corruption of Bedevaartswyk, "the village on the pilgrims' road," and refers to the pilgrimages once made to the church of St Agatha in the neighbourhood.

Up the Tome valley (54 m.) is the hill Avasaxa, whither pilgrimages were formerly made in order to stand in the light of the sun at midnight on St John's day (June 24).

After Mecca and Medina Kairawan is the most sacred city in the eyes of the Mahommedans of Africa, and constant pilgrimages are made to its shrines.

Even among the Israelites, the visitation of certain cult-centres prevailed from remote antiquity; but, when the restriction of Yahwehworship to Jerusalem had doomed the old shrines, the Jewish pilgrimages were directed solely to the sanctuary on Mt Moria.

The pilgrimages of Christianity presuppose the existence of those of paganism; origin.

After the 4th century, monks and nuns begin to form no inconsiderable part of the pilgrimages - a fact which is especially manifest from the numerous notices to be found in Jerome, and the narratives of Theodoret in the Historia religiosa.

In fact, many were inclined to regard a journey to Jerusalem as the bounden duty of every monk - an exaggerated view which led to energetic protests, especially from Gregory of Nyssa, who composed a monograph on the pilgrimages (De its qui adeunt Hierosol.).

Pilgrimages were conceived as means to ensure an answer to particular prayers.

Pilgrimages were consequently undertaken with the intention of securing relics.

In England pilgrimages were made to the tomb of the murdered archbishop, Thomas Becket, in Canterbury Cathedral.

He lavished presents on influential saints, built shrines, sent gifts to churches, went on frequent pilgrimages and spent much time in prayer - employing his consummate diplomacy to win celestial allies, and rewarding them richly when their aid secured him any advantage.

Of his many collections of lyric poems Rok na jihu (a year in the south), Poute k Eldoradu (pilgrimages to Eldorado) and Sonety Samotare (sonnets of a recluse) have particular value.

Among countries represented on a larger scale on maps, Palestine not unnaturally occupies a prominent place in this age of pilgrimages and crusades (1095-1291).

From 1526 to 1625 the usual jubilee pilgrimages from Hungary to Rome had entirely ceased.

Enactments were also passed touching procedure in the ecclesiastical courts, the creation of new monastic orders, appointments to offices in the church, marriage-law, conventual discipline, the veneration of relics, pilgrimages and intercourse with Jews and Saracens.

In 939, however, the stone was restored and pilgrimages to the holy cities were allowed to pass unmolested on payment of a tax.

In 985 they were completely defeated in Irak, and soon after lost control of the pilgrimages.

His book has attained a quasi-canonicity in Islam, being treated almost like the Koran, and to his grave solemn pilgrimages are made, and prayers are believed to be heard there.

His parricidal rebellion lay heavy on his conscience; he practised asceticism at intervals, and dreamed of eastern pilgrimages.

The theologians of the 4th and 5th centuries were at one with the masses in recognizing the religious uses of the pilgrimages.

This fact, after the close of the 11th century, led to the Crusades (q.v.), which in many respects are to be regarded as armed pilgrimages.

All these pilgrimages, great and small, were approved and encouraged by the Church.

Save a mention of the Tell chapel on "Tellsplatte" in 1504 (the first known before was that by Tschudi in 1572), and a proof that the pilgrimages to Burglen and Steinen had nothing to do with "St KUmmerniss," as her images are preserved in the parish churches of those villages, whereas the pilgrims go to the chapels therein, he brings forward no new evidence.

It became a town and fortress under Otto I., his successor, and speedily attained considerable wealth and importance, for a good share of which it was indebted to the pilgrimages which were made to the "arm of St Peter," preserved in one of the churches.

In 1897 pilgrimages from India to the Hedjaz were prohibited.

The reign of " Brother Sacristan, " the nickname given to Joseph by Frederick the Great, was one continual suppression of superfluous abbeys, feast-days, pilgrimages.

He also founded several religious houses, among them the abbeys of Beaulieu, near Loches (c 1007), of Saint-Nicholas at Angers (1020) and of Ronceray at Angers (1028), and, in order to expiate his crimes of violence, made three pilgrimages to the Holy Land (in 1002-1003, c. 1008 and in 1039).

These costumes may be seen at their best at bull-fights and at such popular festivals as the romarias or pilgrimages, which combine religion with the attractions of a fair.

It has two Protestant and six Roman Catholic churches, among the latter the Gothic St Annakirche, said to contain a portion of the head of the saint, to the shrine of which frequent pilgrimages are made.

Pilgrimages to Mecca were not tied to a single time, but they were naturally associated with festive occasions, and especially with the great annual feast and market.

This man was born of a Saivite family about 1825, but in early manhood grew dissatisfied with idolworship. He undertook many pilgrimages and studied the Vedic philosophy in the hope of solving the old problem of the Buddha, - how to alleviate human misery and attain final liberation.