Pilgrim: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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Some of the oldest destinations for pilgrimages are in India. On the sacred river [[Ganges]] lies [[Benares]], the holy city of [[Brahminism]]. [[Buddhism]] offers four sites of pilgrimage: the Buddha's birthplace at [[Kapilavastu]], the site where he first preached at [[Gaya (India)|Gaya]], where the highest insight dawned on him at Benares, and where he achieved [[Nirvana]] at [[Kusinagara]].

In [[Israel]] and [[Judah]] the visitation of certain ancient cult-centers was repressed in the [[7th century BCEBC]], when the worship was restricted to [[Jahweh]] at the temple in Jersusalem. In [[Syria]], the shrine of [[Astarte]] at the headwater spring of the river Adonis survived until it was destroyed by order of [[Emperor Constantine]] in the [[4th century]] CEAD.

In mainland [[Greece]], a stream of individuals made their way to [[Delphi]] or the oracle of [[Zeus]] at [[Dodona]], and once every four years, at the period of the Olympic games, the temple of Zeus at Olympia formed the goal of swarms of pilgrims from every part of the Hellenic world. When [[Alexander the Great]] reached Egypt, he put his whole vast enterprise on hold, while he made his way with a small band deep into the Libyan desert, to consult the oracle of Ammun. During the imperium of his Ptolemaic heirs, the shrine of [[Isis]] at [[Philae]] received many votive inscriptions from Greeks on behalf of their kindred far away at home.

No religion has laid greater stress on the duty of a pilgrimage than Islam in the [[Hajj]] (''q.v.'').

In the [[Middle Ages]], even as early as the [[4th century]] CEAD, Christian pilgrimage was regarded as a sacred obligation and a trial of one's faith, since travel was dangerous, expensive and time-consuming. The anonymous "Pilgrim of Bordeaux" has left an itinerary of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in [[333 A.D.]]. Empress Helena's discovery of the [[True Cross]] outside Jerusalem was the result of a pilgrimage. The [[Seven Sleepers]] of Ephesus attracted pilgrims, who left their [[graffiti]] in the catacomb.

In the West, Saint [[Martin of Tours]] and Martial of [[Limoges]] inspired building projects and an industry catering to pilgrims' requirements, including, in Martial's case, elaborately faked pious documentation (see [[Adhemar of Chabannes]]). The [[shrine]] of [[Santiago de Compostela]] in [[Spain]] lay at the end of a long connected string of pilgrims' sites, as did the city of [[Rome]].

Popular destinations for pilgrimage in [[England]] included [[Bury St. Edmunds]] and [[Thomas Beckett]]'s shrine at [[Canterbury, Kent|Canterbury]], the destination of [[Chaucer]]'s [[14th century]] pilgrims in the [[Canterbury Tales]]. In the north, many pilgrims headed to the shrine of Saint [[Cuthbert of Lindisfarne]].

Pilgrims contributed an important element to long-distance trade before the modern era, and brought prosperity to successful pilgrimage sites, an economic phenomenon unequalled until the tourist trade of the 20th century. Encouraging pilgrims was a motivation for assembling (and sometimes fabricating) [[relic]]s and for writing [[hagiography|hagiographies]] of local saints, filled with inspiring accounts of miracle cures. [[Lourdes]] and other modern pilgrimage sites keep this spirit alive.

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Over the centuries the terms 'pilgrim' and 'pilgrimage' have come to have a somewhat devalued meaning, and are nowadays often applied in a [[secularism|secular]] context. For example, fans of [[Elvis Presley]] may choose to visit his home, [[Graceland]], in [[Memphis, Tennessee]]. Similarly one may refer to a cultural center such as Venice as a "tourists' Mecca".

The ''[[Pilgrims]]'' were a group of [[England|English]] '[[Separatists]]', religious dissidents who exiled themselves first in the [[Netherlands]], then sailed for [[Massachusetts]], in the hope of setting up a colony where they could enjoy religious freedom. In this context, the term 'pilgrim' (first used of them in [[1799]]) means only that they travelled a long way in order to practise their religion.

Compare: [[Hajj]]