Ceremony

For other uses, see Ceremony (disambiguation).

Newly commissioned officers celebrate their new positions by throwing their midshipmen covers into the air as part of the U.S. Naval Academy class of 2005 graduation and commissioning ceremony.

Ceremonial at court during Prinsjesdag

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz salutes Yom Kippur War casualties at an official annual memorial service.

Leaders welcome a boy into Scouting, March 2010, Mexico City, Mexico.

A ceremony is an event of ritual significance, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin, via the Latin caerimonia.

Ceremonial occasions

A ceremony may mark a rite of passage in a human life, marking the significance of, for example:

• birth
• initiation (college orientation week)
• puberty
• social adulthood (Bar (or Bat) Mitzvah)
• graduation
• awarding
• retirement
• death (Day of the Dead)
• burial (funeral)
• spiritual (baptism, communion)

Celebration of events

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

• vernal equinox, winter solstice and other annual astronomical positions
• weekly Sabbath day
• inauguration of an elected office-holder
• occasions in a liturgical year or "feasts" in a calendar of saints
• Opening and closing of a sports event, such as the Olympic Games

Other ceremonies underscore the importance of non-regular special occasions, such as:

• coronation of a monarch
• victory in battle

In some Asian cultures, ceremonies also play an important social role, for example the tea ceremony.

Process

Ceremonies may have a physical display or theatrical component: dance, a procession, the laying on of hands. A declaratory verbal pronouncement may explain or cap the occasion, for instance:

• I now pronounce you husband and wife.
• I swear to serve and defend the nation ...
• I declare open the games of ...
• I/We dedicate this ... ... to ...

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

See also

• Builders' rites
• Cornerstone
• Event planning
• Gift
• Groundbreaking ceremony           

• Human condition
• Opening ceremony
• Ribbon cutting ceremony
• Rite of passage
• Tjurunga
• Topping out (when the last beam is placed at the top of a building)..