Altar Server Attire in the Byzantine Ruthenian church?

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I have a few questions regarding altar server attire in the Byzantine Ruthenian church.
  1. Is it permissable and/or encouraged for a shirt collar and necktie to be clearly visable with the server’s sticharion?
  2. Could an adult server wear a simple (Western) white alb in place of the server’s sticharion if he was serving with a priest and deacon and no other servers? It seems that many priests’ sticharions are identical to albs.
  3. Do “altar server robes” advertised by Orthodox vestment makers differ from sticharions?
Thank you, many years.
 
From what I’ve seen
  1. Encouraged? not particularly. Permitted? Yes. Heck, in some parishes, the pastor’s just happy the boys show up with clean t-shirts
  2. Technically, probably yes, especially if they are canonically latin. However, a server’s sticharion usually has crosses front and back. Our deacon candidate wears his deaconal sticharion, but sans orarion; it has no crosses (but the fabric is a cross brocade).
  3. they are sticharions. They are sticharions intended for persons without orarions or epitrachelions, however; the cross on the front would be covered by the double orarion or the epitrachelion.
 
  1. It depends. Some priests have servers were cassocks underneath, others feel as the cassock is the garb of a cleric and servers shouldn’t wear them.
  2. Absolutley not. The Sticharion is the only proper vesture for a server in Byzantine Churches. If you want to serve get a sticharion. The priest’s sticharion is alb-like because he has to wear a phelonion on top. If he wore a sticharion like a deacon’s he would pass out from the heat. You will notice a Byzantine deacon’s sticahrion never looks like an alb. The topmost vestment is always made of rich fabric, for servers, subdeacons, and deacons that is the sticharion.
  3. No. As stated they are sticharions. They are usually made a little less fancy and cost much less than a sticharion for those in higher orders.
Fr. Deacon Lance
 
Thanks for the (name removed by moderator)ut. This differs from the West.

Showing off a collar/tie in the West is verboten. I have served in a cassock/alb many, many times where I removed my tie and “rolled my collar under” before putting on my cassock. In my Eastern church a tie is seriously encouraged.

That “look” is very un-ecclesial to me. I wonder what other servers wear under their sticharions to give a “finished” look in the collar area?

Our deacon wears a grey “cassock” under his sticharion – I always wondered what that was (I thought it was an alb.) I would definately look into doing that too simply from a laundry standpoint. Would either my black or red cassock be OK presuming a cassock itself was OK?

I was interested in wearing one of my albs for perhaps a half-dozen Divine Liturgies to see if I would be any good at serving at my Eastern parish (we need servers during the week.) We don’t have any sticharions that would fit me but Eastern vestments seem to be substantially cheaper than Western ones so I suppose I could go ahead and just purchase one. Thanks again.
 
CLOTHING CHURCH SERVERS

I am confused by names of things above. English terms I do not know for church-server clothing. Please if you know let me understand:: .

Tell me please: What is called in english podrjasnik (подрясник), and what is called podriznik (подризник). Do your GrekoCatolic diakons and priests were podrjasnik??.

For what I know what priest wears is a podriznik in Orthodox church, not a stikhar’ (стихарь). These looking different - wide sleeves for Stikhar, narrow for podriznik. Podriznik is slightly longer should extend to heel, while stikhar to ankle of wearer.

What is altar server?? - is this ipodiakon or is this candle carriers or altarniki?? like below young boys:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Also do your church servers have head coverings - mitri, skuf’i and kamilavki??? If so what called in English??
 
Volodymyr:

The подрясник is also known in English as a preist’s sticharion, while the deacons’ and servers’ stircharia (стихари) are also called dalmatics (далматики), and the servers sticharia are sometimes called server’s robes.

All three terms are used by both english speaking Orthodox and Catholics, and in the catalogs of orthodox vestment supply houses.

The Alb is the Latin equivalent, literally meaning “white”, but in Russian it would also be подрясник.

Yes, altar servers are what you have shown.

The cassock would be the ряса.
 
The подрясник is also known in English as a preist’s sticharion, while the deacons’ and servers’ stircharia (стихари) are also called dalmatics (далматики), and the servers sticharia are sometimes called server’s robes.
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Not exactly. The podriasnik/pidriasnik is also the under-cassock worn by all clergy, minor or major, in some traditions. A thinner white version also exists which is the priest’s stikharion.

A stikhar is usually called a stikhar or stikharion, and not the Latin terms.

The riassa is the outer-cassock, and often has wide sleeves. It is sometimes worn over the podriasnik/pidriasnik when the priest or deacon is serving but not wearing a stikhar or epitrachlil.
 
OK so servers wear servers’ robes which are actually sticharions which crosses both fore and aft. Are servers allowed to wear any church garment under their sticharions?

The reason I ask is that wearing a sticharion right over a dress shirt with an exposed collar and possibly a tie looks terribly secular to me. Our deacon wears what appears to be a grey alb/cassock. Our priest wears his clerical blacks.

A button-up collarless shirt would look fine – if one could find one. So would an alb with a built in amice.

What do the servers do in your parish?
 
A Sticharion of any stripe has only one cross and that is on the back.

At the end of the day you do what your priest tells you. I tend to think most would find a cassock acceptable, but if he doesn’t want you to wear a cassock then wear a white shirt. An alb and amice would not be acceptable as it is not permitted to mix and match vestments between traditions.

RJ Toomey makes collarless shirts:
www.eganchurchsupply.com/cs/apparel/clerical%20shirts.htm

American Church Supply makes very nice but inexpensive(relatively) server sticharions.
americanchurchsupply.com/index.htm

Fr. Deacon Lance
 
Does the grey color of my parish’s deacon indicate he is married (which he is?)
 
OhMalley said:
Does the grey color of my parish’s deacon indicate he is married (which he is?)
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In Ruthenian use, yes. (Our deacon candidate also wears a gray cassock.)

not in all traditions, however. Some use black and white others black and gray. Others still don’t differentiate.
 
Aramis said:
In Ruthenian use, yes. (Our deacon candidate also wears a gray cassock.)

not in all traditions, however. Some use black and white others black and gray. Others still don’t differentiate.
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What color(s) cassocks do unmarried priests/deacons wear in the Ruthenian church?

When ordering vestments and cassocks for use in the Ruthenian church does one look for Greek-inspired, Russian-inspired or ?-inspired garb? Thanks again.
 
Historically, in the Slav tradition the married clergy wore grey cassocks the monastic clergy wore black. This is no longer followed that much and one will see married clergy in black most of the time and sometimes see celibate non-monastic clergy in grey. Among the Greeks dark blue is also in use.

Among the Ruthenians in the US, only in the Eparchy of Van Nuys must married deacons wear grey cassocks. The rest of us wear black.

As to style, sticharions are the same across the different Byzantine Churches. Greek and Slavic cassocks are slightly different but it really doesn’t matter, it is your choice.

Fr. Deacon Lance
 
Does the grey color of my parish’s deacon indicate he is married (which he is?)
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Not necessarily. In the Ukrainian Catholic Church we have a great variety of colors, black, blue, gray, and even white in warmer weather and after Pascha. My favorite is actually dark blue that I wear most of the time.

Even amongst the Studite monks some wear grey podriasniks (especially to work), so the color convention is very generalized.
 
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