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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Ritualism

Ritualism \Rit"u*al*ism\, n. [Cf. F. ritualisme.]

  1. A system founded upon a ritual or prescribed form of religious worship; adherence to, or observance of, a ritual.

  2. Specifically :

    1. The principles and practices of those in the Church of England, who in the development of the Oxford movement, so-called, have insisted upon a return to the use in church services of the symbolic ornaments (altar cloths, encharistic vestments, candles, etc.) that were sanctioned in the second year of Edward VI., and never, as they maintain, forbidden by competennt authority, although generally disused. Schaff-Herzog Encyc.

    2. Also, the principles and practices of those in the Protestant Episcopal Church who sympathize with this party in the Church of England.

Wiktionary
ritualism

n. The belief that it is necessary for rites or repeated sets of actions to be carried out.

WordNet
ritualism
  1. n. the study of religious or magical rites and ceremonies

  2. exaggerated emphasis on the importance of rites or ritualistic forms in worship

Usage examples of "ritualism".

Or, if the Protestants of all classes would abandon their contemptuous attitude towards so-called ecclesiasticism and ritualism, and criticise themselves, saying: We have had too much confidence in human reason and human words.

This type of compulsiveness and strange ritualism amidst such a frenzy of disorganized mayhem said to me that my prey had some deep and long-term psychological problems.

The romantic in me responded to the pageantry of a parade, to the tribal ritualism of ceremonies that marked anniversaries or comradeships formed long ago on distant battlefields.