In government and politics, inauguration is the process of swearing a person into office and thus making that person the incumbent. Such an inauguration commonly occurs through a formal ceremony or special event, which may also include an inaugural address by the new official.
The word inauguration stems from the Latin augur, which refers to the rituals of ancient Roman priests seeking to interpret if it was the will of the gods for a public official to be deemed worthy to assume office.
The coronation of the monarch of the United Kingdom is an initiation ceremony in which they are formally invested with regalia and crowned at Westminster Abbey. It corresponds to the coronations that formerly took place in other European monarchies, which have all abandoned coronations in favour of inauguration or enthronement ceremonies. A coronation is a symbolic formality and does not signify the official beginning of the monarch's reign; de jure and de facto his or her reign commences from the moment of the preceding monarch's death or abdication, maintaining legal continuity of the monarchy.
The coronation usually takes place several months after the death of the monarch's predecessor, as it is considered a joyous occasion that would be inappropriate while mourning continues. This interval also gives planners enough time to complete the required elaborate arrangements. The most recent coronation took place on 6 May 2023 to crown King Charles III and Queen Camilla.
A ritual is a repeated, structured sequence of actions or behaviors that alters the internal or external state of an individual, group, or environment, regardless of conscious understanding, emotional context, or symbolic meaning. Traditionally associated with gestures, words, or revered objects, rituals also occur in non-human species, such as elephant mourning or corvid object-leaving. They may be prescribed by tradition, including religious practices, and are often characterized by formalism, traditionalism, rule-governance, and performance.
Rituals are a feature of all known human societies. They include not only the worship rites and sacraments of organized religions and cults, but also rites of passage, atonement and purification rites, oaths of allegiance, dedication ceremonies, coronations and presidential inaugurations, marriages, funerals and more. Even common actions like hand-shaking and saying "hello" may be termed as rituals.
The Imperial Investiture (親任式, Shinninshiki) is an official inauguration ceremony whereby the Emperor of Japan formally appoints the Prime Minister of Japan or the Chief Justice of Japan to office. In practice, the Prime Minister is nominated by the Diet, while the Chief Justice is nominated by the Cabinet. The Emperor is constitutionally required to appoint the nominated person, without the right to decline appointment.
During the time period of the Empire of Japan, as the Emperor was the source of executive authority, there were also investitures held for military officials. Such appointees were called the Shinninkan (親任官).
An oath of office is an oath or affirmation a person takes before assuming the duties of an office, usually a position in government or within a religious body, although such oaths are sometimes required of officers of other organizations. Such oaths are often required by the laws of the state, religious body, or other organization before the person may actually exercise the powers of the office or organization. It may be administered at an inauguration, coronation, enthronement, or other ceremony connected with the taking up of office itself, or it may be administered privately. In some cases it may be administered privately and then repeated during a public ceremony.
Some oaths of office are statements of allegiance and loyalty to a constitution or other legal text or to a person or office-holder (e.g., an oath to support the constitution of the state, or of loyalty to the king or queen) (see Oath of allegiance). Under the laws of a state, it may be considered treason or a high crime to betray a sworn oath of office. In many cases, the oath is performed using an oath book, typically religious scripture such as the Bible.
The article is a list of heads of state of Lithuania over historical Lithuanian state. The timeline includes all heads of state of Lithuania as a sovereign entity, legitimately part of a greater sovereign entity, a client state, or a constituent republic subject to an outside authority. Currently, the head of state is the President of Lithuania.
During the inaugurations of Lithuanian monarchs until 1569, the Gediminas' Cap was placed on the monarch's heads by the Bishop of Vilnius in Vilnius Cathedral.
The House of Gediminas (Lithuanian: Gediminaičių dinastija), or simply the Gediminids, were a dynasty of monarchs in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that reigned from the 14th to the 16th century. A cadet branch of this family, known as the Jagiellonian dynasty, reigned also in the Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Hungary and Kingdom of Bohemia. Several other branches ranked among the leading aristocratic dynasties of Poland and Russia into recent times.
Gediminas' Cap was used during the inaugurations of Gediminids as Lithuanian monarchs in the Vilnius Cathedral and symbolized the dynasty's continuity.