BERLIN, Germany — Catholic believers across Germany are celebrating the religious holiday of Corpus Christi with carefully arranged processions through villages and towns, often donning traditional costumes.

People dressed in traditional clothes wait for the start of a Corpus Christi procession at lake Staffelsee in Seehausen near Murnau, Germany, Thursday, June 20, 2019. (Credit: Matthias Schrader/AP.)

In eastern Germany, hundreds of Sorbs, a Slavic minority, participated Thursday in a procession in Crostwitz in the state of Saxony, where little girls dressed in long white and pink dresses and headscarves.

People dressed in the traditional clothes of the Sorbs attend a Corpus Christi procession in Crostwitz, Germany, Thursday, June 20, 2019. (Credit: Jens Meyer/AP.)

Further south, young Bavarian boys dressed in leather pants, or Lederhosen, as they joined a procession at lake Staffelsee in Seehausen near Murnau.

Young boys dressed in traditional clothes wait for the start of a Corpus Christi procession at lake Staffelsee in Seehausen near Murnau, Germany, Thursday, June 20, 2019. (Credit: Matthias Schrader/AP.)

The processions on Corpus Christi commemorate the biblical transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.

People in their boats attend the Corpus Christi procession at lake Staffelsee in Seehausen near Murnau, Germany, Thursday, June 20, 2019. (Credit: Matthias Schrader/AP.)

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