The Orthodox vestments (they are used by the Uniates as well, of course) correspond more or less to ours. It is a very curious case of a parallel evolution. They too, like ours, have developed out of the ordinary Roman dress of the first three centuries; only difference of rite and taste make them now look quite different. In the first place they have nothing like our sequence of liturgical colours[1] and no idea of definite liturgical colour at all. Their vestments are generally white or red and are now always stiff with heavy gold embroidery. They naturally take the handsomest set (of whatever colour) for the greatest feasts. They do, however, as a rule, use black for funerals.[2] When a Bishop is about to celebrate the Holy Liturgy, he first puts on over his cassock the Sticharion (στιχάριον).[3] This is the old tunica talaris, our alb, but it may be of any colour and is generally made of silk or even velvet. It is a long shirt with sleeves, reaching to the feet and wrists, and it is embroidered at the bottom. The bishop's sticharion has red and white bands running from the shoulders to the feet (ποταμοί, the Roman clavus, which we have on our dalmatics). Then he puts on the Epitrachelion (ἐπιτραχήλιον, stole). It is worn round the neck and hangs down in front nearly to the feet. The two bands are generally hooked together or even
- ↑ Our regular sequences of colour do not appear to have begun before the 12th century. Even then there was for a long time an enormous variety of uses. Our five Roman colours were not introduced everywhere till after the Renaissance.
- ↑ They also very commonly use red for times of fasting or penance, because it is a darker colour than white. Their rule of colours is sometimes expressed in this way: white for all feasts, red for fasts and black for funerals. It must then be added that any colour or combination of colours may stand for white.
- ↑ An amice is often used, but it is not a liturgical vestment. Its object is only to keep the vestments clean in hot weather, like the strips of linen that are sometimes tacked to our stoles.
Church has kept. It is true that the way in which she clings to one stage of development is altogether unjustifiable theologically, but it results in a number of very curious and picturesque remnants of a past age, which exist only in her services. Nothing in the world is more dead than the Empire that fell with Constantine XII, and yet its ghost still lingers around the Byzantine altars. For the Church and its furniture see Kattenbusch: Confessionskunde, i. pp. 487-488, Kirchenraum.
