PRESENTATION OF THE VIRGIN, is a feast of the Catholic church, celebrated on the 21st of November, in memory of the blessed Virgin being presented by her parents in the temple, to be there educated. Emanuel Commenus, who began to reign in 1143, makes mention of this feast in his Constitutions. Some imagine it to have been established amongst the Greeks in the 11th century; and think they dis-
President. cover evident proofs of it in some homilies of George of Nicomedia, who lived in the time of Photius. Its institution in the west is ascribed to Gregory XI. in 1372. Others think it was instituted in memory of the ceremony practised amongst the Jews for their newly-born females, and corresponded to the circumcision on the eighth day for males.