ANNUALLY since 1978 the priests, chanters, musicians and dancers of the Sufi dervishes of the Halveti-Jerrahi order from Istanbul have presented their communal ceremony of the ”dhikr” at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. So popular have these admission-free mystical Islamic cermonies become, and so magnetic seems the order’s leader, al-Hajj Sheikh Muzaffereddin Halveti al-Jerrahi, that a mosque for the order has been established in SoHo, reflecting the strong appeal that this particular sect has for the city’s artists.

This spring’s visit – another tour is planned for October – was confined to one local performance. Despite a rainy night, several hundred people turned up Monday at the cathedral, and their participation was so eager that one wondered if the spacious floor of the cathedral could have comfortably accommodated many more.

The dhikr lasted two hours. There was some 45 minutes of music – a chanted prelude, the formal entrance of the main body of the dervishes, then chanting by the sheikh and solo cantors with communal responses from the 40 male dervishes (24 women huddled subserviently at the side). Gradually the music built in intensity and evolved into dance, with instrumental and chanted accompaniment, and finally members of the audience were invited to join, too, forming concentric circles around the sheikh and the dervishes, everyone spinning and swaying and chanting.

For veterans of participatory art events of the 1960’s, all of this seemed familiar. But it must be remembered that the 60’s communalists were inspired by ceremonies of this sort, rather than the other way around. On a purely esthetic level, the echoic vastness of the cathedral made an impressive setting for the ceremony. But this was a ritual that transcended pure art, or more properly restored to art its functional links to the spiritual life of the ”artists” involved, which in turn may explain this order’s appeal to artists, shaken in their faith in their own usefulness.

Perhaps that restoration is more imagined than real: the dhikr is a ”ritual of remembrance,” ostensibly of God but maybe also of the lost power of art literally to transform souls. Looked at this way, through secularized Western eyes, it takes on an unintended poignance. But poignance, too, can be the stuff of meaningful art.