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 mostly Greeks. Until 1871 Dédéagatch was a mere cluster of fishermen’s huts. A new town then began to spring up, settlers being attracted by the prospect of opening up a trade in the products of a vast forest of valonia oaks which grew near. In 1873 it was made the chief town of a Kaza, to which it gave its name, and a Kaimakam was appointed to it. In 1884 it was raised in administrative rank from a Kaza to a Sanjak, and the governor became a Mutessarif. In 1889 the Greek archbishopric of Enos was transferred to Dédéagatch. On the opening, early in 1896, of the Constantinople-Salonica railway, which has a station here, a large proportion of the extensive transit trade which Enos, situated at the mouth of the Maritza, had acquired, was immediately diverted to Dédéagatch, and an era of unprecedented prosperity began; but when the railway connecting Burgas on the Black Sea with the interior was opened, in 1898, Dédéagatch lost all it had won from Enos. Owing to the lack of shelter in its open roadstead, the port has not become the great commercial centre which its position otherwise qualifies it to be. It is, however, one of the chief outlets for the grain trade of the Adrianople, Demotica and Xanthi districts. The valonia trade has also steadily developed, and is supplemented by the export of timber, tobacco and almonds. In 1871, while digging out the foundations of their houses, the settlers found many ancient tombs. Probably these are relics, not of the necropolis of the ancient Zonê, but of a monastic community of Dervishes, of the Dédé sect, which was established here in the 15th century, shortly after the Turkish conquest, and gave to the place its name.

 DEDHAM, a township and the county seat of Norfolk county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., with an area of 23 sq. m. of comparatively level country. Pop. (1890) 7123; (1900) 7457, of whom 2186 were foreign-born; (1910 U.S. census) 9284. The township is traversed by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, and by interurban electric lines. It contains three villages, Dedham, East Dedham and Oakdale. Dedham has a public library (1854; incorporated 1871). The Dedham historical society was organized in 1859 and was incorporated in 1862. The Fairbanks house was erected in part as early as 1654. Carpets, handkerchiefs and woollen goods are manufactured, and a pottery here is reputed to make the only true crackleware outside the East. Dedham was “planted” in 1635 and was incorporated in 1636. It was one of the first two inland settlements of the colony, being coeval with Concord. The original plantation, about 20 m. long and 10 m. wide, extended from Roxbury and Dorchester to the present state line of Rhode Island: from this territory several townships were created, including Westwood (pop. in 1910, 1266), in 1897. A free public school, one of the first in America to be supported by direct taxation, was established in Dedham in 1645. In the Woodward tavern, the birthplace of Fisher Ames, a convention met in September 1774 and adjourned to (q.v.), where it passed the Suffolk Resolves.

 DEDICATION (Lat. dedicatio, from dedicare, to proclaim, to announce), properly the setting apart of anything by solemn proclamation. It is thus in Latin the term particularly applied to the consecration of altars, temples and other sacred buildings, and also to the inscription prefixed to a book, &c., and addressed to some particular person. This latter practice, which formerly had the purpose of gaining the patronage and support of the person so addressed, is now only a mark of affection or regard. In law, the word is used of the setting apart by a private owner of a road to public use. (See .)

The Feast of Dedication ( ) was a Jewish festival observed for eight days from the 25th of Kislev (i.e. about December 12) in commemoration of the reconsecration (165 ) of the temple and especially of the altar of burnt offering, after they had been desecrated in the persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes (168 ). The distinguishing features of the festival were the illumination of houses and synagogues, a custom probably taken over from the feast of tabernacles, and the recitation of Psalm xxx. The biblical references are 1 Macc. i. 41-64, iv. 36-39; 2 Macc. vi. 1-11; John x. 22. See also 2 Macc. i. 9, 18; ii. 16; and Josephus, Antiq. xii. v. 4. J. Wellhausen suggests that the feast was originally connected with the winter solstice, and only afterwards with the events narrated in Maccabees.

Dedication of Churches.—The custom of solemnly dedicating or consecrating buildings as churches or chapels set apart for Christian worship must be almost as old as Christianity itself. If we find no reference to it in the New Testament or in the very earliest apostolic or post-apostolic writings, it is merely due to the fact that Christian churches had not as yet begun to be built. Throughout the ante-Nicene period, until the reign of Constantine, Christian churches were few in number, and any public dedication of them would have been attended with danger in those days of heathen persecution. This is why we are ignorant as to what liturgical forms and what consecration ritual were employed in those primitive times. But when we come to the earlier part of the 4th century allusions to and descriptions of the consecration of churches become plentiful.

Like so much else in the worship and ritual of the Christian church this service is probably of Jewish origin. The hallowing of the tabernacle and of its furniture and ornaments (Exodus xl.); the dedication of Solomon’s temple (1 Kings viii.) and of the second temple by Zerubbabel (Ezra vi.), and its rededication by Judas Maccabaeus (see above), and the dedication of the temple of Herod the Great (Josephus, Antiq. of the Jews, bk. xv. c. xi. § 6), and our Lord’s recognition of the Feast of Dedication (St John xi. 22, 23)—all these point to the probability of the Christians deriving their custom from a Jewish origin, quite apart from the intrinsic appropriateness of such a custom in itself.

Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. lib. x. cap. 3) speaks of the dedication of churches rebuilt after the Diocletian persecution, including the church at Tyre in 314. The consecrations of the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem in 335, which had been built by Constantine, and of other churches after his time, are described both by Eusebius and by other ecclesiastical historians. From them we gather that every consecration was accompanied by a celebration of the Holy Eucharist and a sermon, and special prayers of a dedicatory character, but there is no trace of the elaborate ritual, to be described presently, of the medieval pontificals dating from the 8th century onwards.

The separate consecration of altars is provided for by canon 14 of the council of Agde in 506, and by canon 26 of the council of Epaone in 517, the latter containing the first known reference to the usage of anointing the altar with chrism. The use of both holy water and of unction is attributed to St Columbanus, who died in 615 (Walafrid Strabo, Vita S. Galli, cap. 6).

There was an annual commemoration of the original dedication of the church, a feast with its octave extending over eight days, during which Gregory the Great encouraged the erection of booths and general feasting on the part of the populace, to compensate them for, and in some way to take the place of, abolished heathen festivities (Sozomen, Hist. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. 26; Bede, Hist. Eccles. lib. i. cap. 30).

At an early date the right to consecrate churches was reserved to bishops, as by canon 37 of the first council of Bracara in 563, and by the 23rd of the Irish collections of canons, once attributed to St Patrick, but hardly to be put earlier than the 8th century (Haddon and Stubbs, Councils, &c., vol. ii. pt. 2, p. 329).

When we come to examine the MS. and printed service-books of the medieval church, we find a lengthy and elaborate service provided for the consecration of churches. It is contained in the pontifical. The earliest pontifical which has come down to us is that of Egbert, archbishop of York (732–766), which, however, only survives in a 10th-century MS. copy. Later pontificals are numerous; we cannot describe all their variations. A good idea, however, of the general character of the service will be obtained from a skeleton of it as performed in this country before the Reformation according to the use of Sarum. The service in question is taken from an early 15th-century pontifical in the Cambridge University Library as printed by W. Makell in Monumenta ritualia ecclesiae Anglicanae, and ed., vol. i. pp. 195-239. 