What color phelonion is a priest supposed wear to concelebrate a funeral Mass?

[Draper]

What color phelonion is a Ruthenian Priest supposed to wear while concelebrating a Latin Rite funeral Mass (presuming he vests in a phelonion at all) for a deceased Latin Rite priest?

I have been to the funeral Divine Liturgies of two Ruthenian Catholic priests over the years in Ruthenian parishes. All the Eastern priests (including the bishop) wore gold/white/goldish white phelonions (or sakkos in the case of the bishops) or a white/gold epitrachelion over black sticharions without exception.

Today I went to a funeral Mass for a deceased Latin Rite priest in a Latin Rite parish. All the Latin Rite priests were wearing gold/white chasubles or white albs with gold/white stoles but the lone Ruthenian priest was wearing a red phelonion.

Do Ruthenian priests change their vestment colors when visiting Latin Rite churches or is there not a set color for funerals? The Ruthenian Catholic priest definitely has access to all vestment colors, plus there wasn’t anything special about this funeral Mass except that the decedent was a priest so I’m a bit curious? Thanks.

 

[Bonnie]

This isn’t Ruthenian, but perhaps it’s close enough to answer your question.

Red vestments: are used during lent time and for funeral. Based color is red, shades varying up to purple or combinations on red-purple background.

From people.opposingviews.com/color-vestments-orthodox-requiem-9481.html

 

[Vico]

What color phelonion is a Ruthenian Priest supposed to wear while concelebrating a Latin Rite funeral Mass (presuming he vests in a phelonion at all) for a deceased Latin Rite priest?

I have been to the funeral Divine Liturgies of two Ruthenian Catholic priests over the years in Ruthenian parishes. All the Eastern priests (including the bishop) wore gold/white/goldish white phelonions (or sakkos in the case of the bishops) or a white/gold epitrachelion over black sticharions without exception.

Today I went to a funeral Mass for a deceased Latin Rite priest in a Latin Rite parish. All the Latin Rite priests were wearing gold/white chasubles or white albs with gold/white stoles but the lone Ruthenian priest was wearing a red phelonion.

Do Ruthenian priests change their vestment colors when visiting Latin Rite churches or is there not a set color for funerals? The Ruthenian Catholic priest definitely has access to all vestment colors, plus there wasn’t anything special about this funeral Mass except that the decedent was a priest so I’m a bit curious? Thanks.

Generally light vestments are used for Ruthenian funeral (white is popular). Red that is not dark is also light.

 

[5Loaves]

What color phelonion is a Ruthenian Priest supposed to wear…

There are only “dark”, and “bright” vestments. And there are reds in both “dark” and “bright” vestments.

Generally light vestments are used for Ruthenian funeral (white is popular). Red that is not dark is also light.

See the attached descriptions of “dark” and “bright” from a fantastic book by master vestment tailor, Khouria Krista West, The Garments of Salvation: Orthodox Christian Liturgical Vesture. It can be confusing.

 

[Draper]

Generally light vestments are used for Ruthenian funeral (white is popular). Red that is not dark is also light.

Oh, OK – back to the light/dark designations. So there would be some latitude. Gotcha.

I’m curious – is using blue, green, red, white, gold and silver vestments in the Ruthenian Church (rather than simply light/dark) a latinization, or is that practice (which definitely came from the West) approved because it’s older than what we typically refer to as latinizations?

 

[5Loaves]

Oh, OK – back to the light/dark designations. So there would be some latitude. Gotcha.

I’m curious – is using blue, green, red, white, gold and silver vestments in the Ruthenian Church (rather than** simply light/dark**) a latinization, or is that practice (which definitely came from the West) approved because it’s older than what we typically refer to as latinizations?

What gives you the idea this “came from the West”?

There is nothing “simple” about the bright and dark categories. Look again at the texts I included, describing the variety of colors involved in them. “Dark” and “bright” are as richly layered as everything in the Divine services in Eastern Christianity, where we enter heaven on earth – the temple covered in icons, the iconostasis, the vessels, the paraments, the psalmody, hymnody, the incense, the bells, and the vestments.

 

[Vico]

Oh, OK – back to the light/dark designations. So there would be some latitude. Gotcha.

I’m curious – is using blue, green, red, white, gold and silver vestments in the Ruthenian Church (rather than simply light/dark) a latinization, or is that practice (which definitely came from the West) approved because it’s older than what we typically refer to as latinizations?

I don’t know much history on this topic, only that white was the original color used in the ancient Church, and later colors were adopted. Western early Church first added red, green, and black, mainly, to the original white. The Byzantine Synthesis of 1261-1453 combined Cathedral Rite (influenced by Justinian I) and monastic practices. More than one Byzantine typikon ( Savaite, Studite, and Nikon revisions) evolved and these do mention vestments.

 

[FrDavid96]

What color phelonion is a Ruthenian Priest supposed to wear while concelebrating a Latin Rite funeral Mass (presuming he vests in a phelonion at all) for a deceased Latin Rite priest?

I have been to the funeral Divine Liturgies of two Ruthenian Catholic priests over the years in Ruthenian parishes. All the Eastern priests (including the bishop) wore gold/white/goldish white phelonions (or sakkos in the case of the bishops) or a white/gold epitrachelion over black sticharions without exception.

Today I went to a funeral Mass for a deceased Latin Rite priest in a Latin Rite parish. All the Latin Rite priests were wearing gold/white chasubles or white albs with gold/white stoles but the lone Ruthenian priest was wearing a red phelonion.

Do Ruthenian priests change their vestment colors when visiting Latin Rite churches or is there not a set color for funerals? The Ruthenian Catholic priest definitely has access to all vestment colors, plus there wasn’t anything special about this funeral Mass except that the decedent was a priest so I’m a bit curious? Thanks.

A visiting priest “should” always wear the same color as the principle celebrant. This is the ideal. It doesn’t always happen, for various reasons.

It doesn’t matter if he’s visiting from the neighboring parish, hundreds of miles away, or even from a different ritual Church. Ideally, any concelebrant wears the same color as the main celebrant, regardless of anything else.

Sometimes, we don’t always have the opportunity to either ask or be told what color to bring. This is especially true for a funeral because there isn’t a lot of time to prepare invitations (like there would be for some other occasion).

The Byzantine tradition is to wear red vestments for a funeral, sometimes other “dark” colors like purple/violet, or combinations of these, but mostly red.

In the 1970s it became fashionable among Latin priests to wear white at funerals (unfortunately). There’s no precedent for this. It’s entirely an innovation of the 1960/70s to make funerals into canonization ceremonies. In the Roman Rite, the proper color for funerals has always been violet or black (or red for deceased Popes/Cardinals).

The Eastern Churches started to use white at funerals in imitation of what the Romans were doing–but only in recent decades, since white itself is a modern innovation.

As the Eastern Churches struggle (still) to recover their own identities, we observe a lot of back-and-forth on this sort of thing.

The Ruthenian priest probably wore red because that’s his own proper color for funerals. This might have happened for any number of reasons. Maybe no one told him to wear white. Maybe he just reached into the vestment closet and took his “funeral vestment” without giving it another thought. Maybe the idea of white at a funeral just didn’t make sense to him, so he decided to wear red.

 

[Draper]

A visiting priest “should” always wear the same color as the principle celebrant. This is the ideal. It doesn’t always happen, for various reasons.

It doesn’t matter if he’s visiting from the neighboring parish, hundreds of miles away, or even from a different ritual Church. Ideally, any concelebrant wears the same color as the main celebrant, regardless of anything else.

Sometimes, we don’t always have the opportunity to either ask or be told what color to bring. This is especially true for a funeral because there isn’t a lot of time to prepare invitations (like there would be for some other occasion).

The Byzantine tradition is to wear red vestments for a funeral, sometimes other “dark” colors like purple/violet, or combinations of these, but mostly red.

In the 1970s it became fashionable among Latin priests to wear white at funerals (unfortunately). There’s no precedent for this. It’s entirely an innovation of the 1960/70s to make funerals into canonization ceremonies. In the Roman Rite, the proper color for funerals has always been violet or black (or red for deceased Popes/Cardinals).

The Eastern Churches started to use white at funerals in imitation of what the Romans were doing–but only in recent decades, since white itself is a modern innovation.

As the Eastern Churches struggle (still) to recover their own identities, we observe a lot of back-and-forth on this sort of thing.

The Ruthenian priest probably wore red because that’s his own proper color for funerals. This might have happened for any number of reasons. Maybe no one told him to wear white. Maybe he just reached into the vestment closet and took his “funeral vestment” without giving it another thought. Maybe the idea of white at a funeral just didn’t make sense to him, so he decided to wear red.

Thanks for the insight. This priest certainly received the email that included “Vestment color: white. Please bring your own alb and stole. White chasuble optional” as he was on distribution. Given that I have seen all-white (or black/white) at Ruthenian funeral DLs for priests before, I was confused about the red.

I’m still a bit confused if bright or dark vestments are prescribed for Ruthenian funeral liturgies? I do agree with one thing. Real effort should be made to match whatever color is being worn by the principle celebrant if at all possible.

 

[Draper]

I don’t know much history on this topic, only that white was the original color used in the ancient Church, and later colors were adopted. Western early Church first added red, green, and black, mainly, to the original white. The Byzantine Synthesis of 1261-1453 combined Cathedral Rite (influenced by Justinian I) and monastic practices. More than one Byzantine typikon ( Savaite, Studite, and Nikon revisions) evolved and these do mention vestments.

It’s an interesting subject. For decades the only vestment colors at the Ruthenian parish I frequent was white and dark maroon (bright and dark.) The pastor himself (but not the deacon or servers) also had gold vestments. Now there are closets full of: white, blue, green, red and gold vestments. All depends who’s in charge it would seem.

 

[FrDavid96]

Thanks for the insight. This priest certainly received the email that included "Vestment color: white. Please bring your own alb and stole. …

If you only knew…

We priests are constantly attending events where invitations (or outright “must obey” instructions) tell us which color to wear. I don’t think I have ever once experienced an event where there were not a couple of priests who wore a different color than what was instructed.

I don’t know why that particular priest chose red. Like I said earlier, he might have just reached into the sacristy closet and grabbed his “this is my funeral vestment” without really thinking about it. I’m not going to attempt to assign a motivation; not beyond explaining that objectively speaking, red is his color for funerals.

But believe me when I say that when a priest reads your message “the email said to bring white” we’re all rolling our eyes and thinking the same thing. No matter what is said, or how often it’s said, there are always going to be some priests who are wearing the wrong color.

Please note: I don’t mean to imply that the following applies to that priest (as he is Ruthenian, I would bet against it, in fact).

There’s always one or two who just “don’t get it” and bring the seasonal color (rather than white, which is typical for large gatherings). They seem to be the same ones year after year. And of course, there’s often some joker who insists on wearing his hippie rainbow stole, or the orange stole with the teal crosses, or the felt “my first stole” with the little animal figures that matches with the animals on the chasuble so he knows which ones match with which. (You know, you can wear the fish chasuble with the fish stole but you cannot wear the parrot chasuble with the fish stole because stripes and dots don’t match?)

Believe you me, when a priest reads that you actually think that just because the priests were all instructed to wear white, that means they’re all going to wear white, we’re getting a good laugh!

 

[Draper]

But believe me when I say that when a priest reads your message “the email said to bring white” we’re all rolling our eyes and thinking the same thing. No matter what is said, or how often it’s said, there are always going to be some priests who are wearing the wrong color.

Knowing this specific priest’s personality, I suspect he actually wanted to stand out, hence the red. I was just curious if that was a licit choice (or some sort of odd requirement in this specific instance) given the use of white at actual Ruthenian funerals at Ruthenian parishes that I have attended.

Once someone noted (posting #3) that Ruthenians typically choose a bright color for funeral DLs and that some reds are considered bright, that was my answer.

At the same time I cannot imagine a Latin Rite priest being invited to concelebrate a funeral DL and demanding to wear black or violet after he was alerted that everyone else would be wearing white. Differing levels of good manners it would seem. As you noted, just wear what the principle celebrant is wearing. Done deal.

For what it’s worth, there were more than 20 priests at this funeral. All but one followed the “color code” of the day.

 

[FrDavid96]

Knowing this specific priest’s personality, I suspect he actually wanted to stand out, hence the red. I was just curious if that was a licit choice (or some sort of odd requirement in this specific instance) given the use of white at actual Ruthenian funerals at Ruthenian parishes that I have attended.

Once someone noted (posting #3) that Ruthenians typically choose a bright color for funeral DLs and that some reds are considered bright, that was my answer.

At the same time I cannot imagine a Latin Rite priest being invited to concelebrate a funeral DL and demanding to wear black or violet after he was alerted that everyone else would be wearing white. Differing levels of good manners it would seem. As you noted, just wear what the principle celebrant is wearing. Done deal.

I can. I’ve seen it, but in reverse. I recall a number of Eastern funerals where dark colors were worn but the Latin priests insisted on wearing white anyway.

For what it’s worth, there were more than 20 priests at this funeral. All but one followed the “color code” of the day.

There’s always one.

I agree with you. If an invite or notification says to wear a certain color, then the priest should wear that color. Period. All I’m saying is that it almost never happens that way–not if the priests bring their own vestments as opposed to wearing what’s available (eg at a cathedral, they might have 20 white vestments to share).

Anyway, I am surprised that the Ruthenians (at least some, maybe most) are wearing white for funerals. They have historically been at the forefront for restoring their heritage in the US. I find it odd they have not done away with white, especially since it’s new in the Roman Rite.

 

[MonkMoses]

Byzantine priests are required to follow the directives of their own bishop when concelebrating in a ritual church that they do not belong to. Most Byzantine bishops require their priests to fully vest ( no “alb and stole” only) and require their priests to wear the colors that are appropriate within their own church. Therefore it would be perfectly normal for a concelebrating Byzantine priest at a Latin funeral to wear dark (red) vestments.

 

[Draper]

Byzantine priests are required to follow the directives of their own bishop when concelebrating in a ritual church that they do not belong to. Most Byzantine bishops require their priests to fully vest ( no “alb and stole” only) and require their priests to wear the colors that are appropriate within their own church. Therefore it would be perfectly normal for a concelebrating Byzantine priest at a Latin funeral to wear dark (red) vestments.

It would also have been “normal” (not to mention courteous) for him to have worn white.

 

[Draper]

…I agree with you. If an invite or notification says to wear a certain color, then the priest should wear that color. Period. All I’m saying is that it almost never happens that way–not if the priests bring their own vestments as opposed to wearing what’s available (eg at a cathedral, they might have 20 white vestments to share)…

I suspect if the bishop visited for a big funeral DL today, the color for the liturgy would be white/goldish.

I have to chuckle about the priest in red. He was buried in the procession by the MC, in large part I suspect due to the disharmonious color of his vestments. He didn’t appear to be a happy camper either.

 

[Vico]

There are only “dark”, and “bright” vestments. And there are reds in both “dark” and “bright” vestments.

See the attached descriptions of “dark” and “bright” from a fantastic book by master vestment tailor, Khouria Krista West, The Garments of Salvation: Orthodox Christian Liturgical Vesture. It can be confusing.

Interesting isn’t it. Ancient Faith Radio had this from Kh. Krista:Red is a fascinating color within the Church as it can be both bright and dark. Red can range from pale coral to deep burgundy and it’s almost as if you have to decide whether a red brocade is bright or dark on a case-by-case basis. Because of this, red tends to be “outside” the regular bright and dark rubrics and this is emphasized in an interesting way: In both Moscow and the monasteries on Mt. Athos, red is worn for the Resurrectional Service of Holy Pascha, but at no other time in Paschaltide. Liturgically, the time from the garden of Gethsemane to the Resurrection is one day and the use of red underscores this—red is associated with both the cross and the Resurrection, tying together by use of one color the entirety of the Paschal mysteries. It’s the “rule-breaker” color because it transcends the rules, just as Christ transcended the laws of nature through His death on the cross and glorious Resurrection.
ancientfaith.com/podcasts/kwtailor/why_everything_you_thought_you_knew_about_color_was_wrong

 

[5Loaves]

Interesting isn’t it. Ancient Faith Radio had this from Kh. Krista

It is interesting and her book is extraordinary in the depth of research and the fullness of the Orthodox sensibility she offers. I’m so glad that after so many years it was finally published. I’m grateful for this thread which has caused me to pull it out to read from again.

“It should be typical in any Orthodox Christian service with multiple clergy to see a variety of fabrics and colors: on a Sunday morning one priest might be clothed in ivory vestments embroidered with gold and burgundy, while another is vested in a rich gold metallic brocade, while yet a third dons liturgical garments emblazoned with green leaves and red grapes, along with gold and silver crosses.” pg 194

“In traditional Orthodox Christian practice, quality and brilliance are considered equally important to color, indeed more important…If a clergyman’s finest set of vestments are gold with blue, then he would wear these for major feast days because they are not only bright but also brilliant. In the color usage of Orthodox Christian liturgical vesture, the ancient concepts of brilliance and brightness remain far more significant than a modern affinity for a specific color hue.” pg 171
The Garments of Salvation: Orthodox Christian Liturgical Vesture.

At the Hierarchical Vespers tonight for the altar feast of the local Greek Orthodox Cathedral this “variety of fabrics and colors” was quite apparent as the attached picture shows. Not seen in the picture are the young altar servers whose sticharion were a kind of coral or orange with red galoon. I didn’t notice the color of the Metropolitan’s omophorion during the brief time he wore it. When I took this picture he was all in black, in his exorason. He’s mostly hidden though you can see a bit of his kalimavkion and the shiny tip of his staff.

 

[5Loaves]

Byzantine priests are required to follow the directives of their own bishop when concelebrating in a ritual church that they do not belong to. Most Byzantine bishops require their priests to fully vest ( no “alb and stole” only) and require their priests to wear the colors that are appropriate within their own church. Therefore it would be perfectly normal for a concelebrating Byzantine priest at a Latin funeral to wear dark (red) vestments.

S’pradznikom!
And in my experience, Father Moses, such circumstances of concelebration then become important “teaching moments”. Roman Catholics are frequently very interested in why Eastern clergy are dressed so differently from the Latin Church clergy. When now Archishop Salvatore Cordilone was installed as then Bishop in the Diocese of Oakland his good friend your Abbot Nicholas was there, and probably Fr Maximos also, I forget now, as well as Fr Tom Loya. I said to Fr Tom later that I got asked more questions by my Roman Catholic friends about the Eastern Churches because of his and their distinctive EC garb, than I had gotten asked in years.

 

[MonkMoses]

It would also have been “normal” (not to mention courteous) for him to have worn white.

IMO it’s more important to follow proper protocol and the directives of your bishop then to try and “fit in”.