A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

PROCESSION. The formal march of the clergy and the people putting up prayer.

The first processions mentioned in ecclesiastical history are those begun at Constantinople by St. Chrysostom. The Arians of that city being forced to hold their meetings without the town, went thither night and morning, singing anthems. Chrysostom, to prevent their perverting the Catholics, set up counter-processions, in which the clergy and people marched by night, singing prayers and hymns, and carrying crosses and flambeaux. From this period, the custom of processions was introduced among the Greeks, and afterwards among the Latins; but they have subsisted longer, and been more frequently used, in the Western than in the Eastern Church. The name of Procession was formerly sometimes used for the Litany. (See Litany, Rogation Days.)

PROCTOR. (Procurator, Lat.) Proctors are officers established to represent, in judgment, the parties who empower them (by warrant under their hands, called a proxy) to appear for them to explain their rights, to manage and instruct their cause, and to demand judgment.

The representatives of the clergy in convocation are also called proctors.

The same name is given to university officers, whose business is to guard the morals and preserve the quiet of the university at Oxford and Cambridge; to present candidates in arts and music for their degrees; and (formerly in a more special manner than at present) to superintend their public exercises. The latter is now the prominent practice of the proctors in the university of Dublin: the senior proctor presiding at the Masters’ exercises, the junior at the Bachelors’. They are two in number, and chosen annually by the several colleges in cycle.

Procurators were officers in some of the ancient universities of Europe, as in Paris; they were then four in number, elected annually, each by one of the four nations into which the students were divided: and the rector, the deans of divinity, law, medicine, and the four proctors, formed the standing council of the university: somewhat analogous to the caput at Cambridge. The deans were the proctors of their respective faculties. Anciently the university of Oxford was divided into two “nations,” as they might be called, each of which was represented by a proctor.

PROCURATION. A pecuniary sum or composition by an incumbent to an ordinary or other ecclesiastical judge, to commute for the provision, or entertainment, which he was formerly expected to provide for such ordinary at the time of visitation. (See Synodal.)

PROFESSOR. A public teacher in a university.

PROPHECY. (From προφητεία.) The prediction of future things. (See Scripture, Inspiration of, and Miracles.)

PROPHESYINGS. Religious exercises of the clergy in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, instituted for the purpose of promoting knowledge and piety. The ministers of a particular division at a set time met together in some church of a market or other large town, and there each in order explained, according to their abilities, some portion of Scripture allotted to them before. This done, a moderator made his observations on what had been said, and determined the true sense of the place, a certain space of time being fixed for despatching the whole. These exercises being however abused, by irregularity, disputations, and divisions, were restrained.—Canon 72.