Illuminated procession
Parade of carried lights
An illuminated procession is a procession held after dark so that lights carried by the participants form a spectacle. The lights will commonly be of the same type, so making a candlelight procession, lantern parade or torchlight march.
Examples include the Christmas festival of Ndocciata in Italy; the Chinese Lantern Festival to celebrate the first full moon; and the daily procession of pilgrims to the grotto of Lourdes.
History
Torchlight processions were known already in Ancient Greece where it was connected with Ancient Greek religion. Until today they are part modern adaptations of Dionysia festival in Greece and elsewhere.
Torchlight marches in politics
Before the American Civil War in the U.S., illuminated processions were held to promote political parties. That includes mass torch light processions in 1858 at Hartford Connecticut, the Republican Party in New York City in 1860 and in Galesburg, Illinois in 1884.
Winter sport excursions and parades
Snowshoe tramps by torchlight have been held in Montreal since 1873. Processions of skiers holding torches or flares while skiing down a slope at night has been a scheduled event of winter festivals since at least 1903.
Marches by Far-right
The Far-right and Nationalist groups have had a long history of torchlight marches.
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This entry incorporates text from “Illuminated procession” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.