by Krista West
It seems certain that the epigonation was first bestowed upon bishops and “had become a regular item of liturgical dress. . . .”45 and then much later, most likely after the eleventh century, was awarded to presbyters for distinctive service.46 Its modern usage underscores this ancient practice in that it is awarded to presbyters in various Orthodox jurisdictions for either the completion of formal theological training, the blessing of hearing confession, or in recognition of a lengthy and distinguished period of priestly service. In the epigonation may also be found the origins of the Russian nabedrennik, another presbyteral award piece, similar in size but in a horizontal, rather than trapezoidal, orientation and usually lacking the elaborate decoration that may adorn the epigonation.
Further Development of Bishops’ Vestments
The last, significant piece of Orthodox Christian vesture that needs to be examined in a study of the origins of Church vestments is the bishop’s sakkos. Up until the Middle Byzantine period (AD 867–1204) the bishop was vested in sticharion, epitrachelion, zone, epimanikia, epigonation, phelonion, and omophorion. Sometime around the eleventh to twelfth century, the episcopal phelonion underwent a new development and began to be made from polystavros material, a woven fabric with a geometric design of crosses (“polystavros” means “many crosses” in Greek). The use of this fabric for phelonia was the exclusive right of bishops, and, originally, only for the bishops in the sees of Caesarea, Ephesus, Thessaloniki, and Corinth.47 By the fifteenth century, St Symeon of Thessaloniki refers to use of the polystavros as a privilege of all metropolitans48 and from that point its use trickles down to all bishops and then, eventually, to presbyters as well. With this extension of the polystavros phelonion from certain episcopal sees to the entire episcopacy and thence to the entire presbyterate, we see how the award of vestments takes place and why, over time, vestments that originally were the prerogative of the episcopacy are now worn even by deacons (e.g., epimanikia).
Regarding the sakkos, sometime during the same period there comes a fascinating shift which results directly from the political fate of Byzantium. During the Middle Byzantine period the power of the emperors began to decline due to various socio-political developments, and the populace of Byzantium began to place more emphasis upon the power of heaven than upon the earthly power of the emperor. The idea of the court of Byzantium as a mirror image of the Heavenly Court became widespread and there was a freer interchange of symbology between earthly and heavenly.49
It was during this time that the garment previously exclusive to the emperor, the sakkos, began to replace the phelonion in the episcopal liturgical attire, first of patriarchs, then gradually of all bishops. Just like the polystavros phelonion, there was a trickle-down effect: at first, only the patriarch was allowed the wearing of the sakkos, as is mentioned by Theodore Balsamon in the twelfth century, but by the fifteenth century, St Symeon of Thessaloniki recounts that all archbishops were allowed its use.50 All of the other historic garments such as the sticharion and epitrachelion continued to be worn by the bishop, but the phelonion was laid aside in favor of the imperial sakkos with its connotations of spiritual authority now eclipsing even the highest earthly authority.
In construction, the bishop’s sakkos is a highly ornamented colobium. It is similar to the deacon’s sticharion, but is worn shorter, most likely a necessary feature due to its use of heavy and ornate fabrics and also possibly so that any ornamentation on the sticharion and epitrachelion might be seen, an example of the layered fashion much beloved of the Byzantines. The sleeves of the bishop’s sakkos are often shorter as well, the better to display the elaborately embellished epimanikia worn on the sleeves of the sticharion underneath.
Today, we most commonly see a bishop attired in sakkos with omophorion, now referred to as the “great” omophorion to distinguish it from an abbreviated form, the “small” omophorion. In the course of the Divine Liturgy, the bishop removes the great omophorion and replaces it with the much shorter small omophorion so that he is less encumbered for the Anaphora prayers and Communion. These two omophoria are nearly always matching in fabric and decoration since they are essentially two forms of the same garment.
The episcopal miter, the heavily ornamented crown featuring metal-thread embroidery and iconographic depictions, was a quite late addition to Orthodox Christian practice. Originally, the use of headgear during a liturgical service was reserved as a special right of the patriarch of Alexandria and the use of the miter was only taken up by other bishops when the patriarch of Alexandria was translated to Constantinople in the seventeenth century.51
Conclusion
With this overview of ancient garment history, culminating in the standardization of Orthodox liturgical vesture in the early Byzantine Roman Empire, we clearly observe a methodical and ordered development, particularly in the transformation of Roman imperial, ceremonial garments into Orthodox ecclesiastical garments. Contrary to popular and some scholarly opinion, Orthodox Christian vestments did not emerge from a random evolution, but rather are the result of a focused development stemming from a conscious endeavor to redeem the garments of the pomp of the world and transform them into the glorious, heavenly garments of salvation. Our beautiful vestment tradition is no mere accident of history but rather an important facet of the story of salvation and, as such, cannot be relegated to the realm of aesthetic preference, but must take its proper historical and spiritual place as a visible testament to our theology, an expression of the love and mercy of God, and the proper adornment of the Church of Christ.
Notes
1 The English term “tunic” (derived from the Latin tunica) will be used interchangeably with the Greek sticharion signifying a long, robe-like garment.
2 Carl Kohler, A History of Costume (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1963), 66.
3 Kohler, 67.
4 Kohler, 69.
5 Kohler, 70.
6 The dress of the ancient Persians will be familiar to Orthodox Christians from the depiction of the Magi in icons of the Nativity of Christ. Additionally, their attire can be observed in the mosaic of the Empress Theodora at San Vitale in Ravenna, depicted in the richly embroidered hem of her garment.
7 Mary G. Houston, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Costume (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2003), 16.
8 Houston, 75.
9 Houston, 87.
10 Houston, 93.
11 Houston, 135.
12 Houston, 92.
13 Houston, 120.
14 Houston, 126.
15 Kohler, 116.
16 It bears mentioning that at no time in history has there ever been a nation whose citizenry called themselves “Byzantines” or thought of themselves as such; rather, those people whom we call Byzantines would consistently have referred to themselves as Romans, emphasizing their continuity with the traditions and mindset of the classical world. For the sake of clarity, I have followed a convention common among an older generation of art history scholars of referring to the Christian Roman Empire (i.e., the period from the conversion of Constantine to the fall of Constantinople) as “Byzantine.”
17 Robert Browning , Justinian and Theodora (New York, NY: Praeger Publishers, 1971), 89.
18 Browning, 89.
19 Gervase Mathew, Byzantine Aesthetics (London: John Murray, 1963), 62.
20 It is interesting to observe that after the Fall of Rome, the ancient city’s civil dress changed to correspond with that of the barbarian conquerors.
21 Eusebius, The History of the Church (London: Penguin Books, 1865), 306. Eusebius completed his History of the Church most likely no later than AD 324 and perhaps earlier. Thus, the possible reference to specific, hieratic vestments in the address to Paulinus occurs within a decade of the founding of Constantinople and could be seen as evidence of the standardization of vestments prior to the Christianization of New Rome, although this cannot be stated unequivocally from a scholarly standpoint.
22 J.W. Legg, Church Ornaments and Their Civil
Antecedents (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1917), 25.
23 Robert Sabatino Lopez, “Silk Industry in the Byzantine Empire,” Speculum, Vol. 20, No. 1 (January 1945): 1–42.
24 Kohler, 71.
25 Louis Duchesne, Christian Worship: Its Origins and Evolutions (London: SPCK, 1904), 384.
26 Duchesne, 391.
27 Archimandrite Chrysostomos, Orthodox Liturgical Dress (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press), 37.
28 Chrysostomos, 45.
29 Mathew, 53.
30 Browning, 98.
31 Mathew, 54.
32 Since the eleventh to twelfth centuries, it has become increasingly common for bishops to be vested in the sakkos—a specific form of the colobium—rather than phelonion. While the sakkos has distinct imperial overtones (being the vestment of the emperor) and is a glorious garment, I have a complaint against its episcopal usage due to the fact that it displaces the phelonion, and thus is lost the symbology of the bishop taking on additional responsibility (i.e., oversight of the presbyterate) and suggests the laying aside of one office (the presbyterate) in order to assume another (the episcopate). The more ancient usage, in which the bishop assumes the omophorion, worn over the phelonion, emphasizes the proper ecclesial understanding in which the bishop is the head and overseer of the local synod of presbyters.
33 While I have expended much effort in finding firm correlations, absolute confirmation continues to elude me in the shadows of history, and so I must be clear that these are purely my own theories, some supported by respected authors on the subject, such as Duchesne and Legg, and others not.
34 Chrysostomos, 40.
35 The question of the source of the word “orarion” is a linguistic puzzle which is fascinating in its own right and may, or may not, shed light on the origins of the garment thus named. In addition to a derivation from “os,” it has also been suggested that the name could derive from the Latin “hora” (referencing the deacon leading prayers at the services of the hours) or simply from the Latin verb “orare,” meaning “to pray,” and in this understanding could well have the meaning “the item one prays with,” establishing it as a liturgical scarf of office and thereby differentiating it from a ceremonial or court scarf of office.
36 If the form of the orarion does indeed come from the abbreviation of the full pallium to its decorative border edging, then another source for the word “orarion” is "suggested: “ora” is a Latin word meaning “border” or “edge.”
37 It is significant to note that, when laid out flat, an orarion and a buttonless epitrachelion without shaping at the neck are virtually identical, another argument for the common origin of both garments in the pallium.
38 Duchesne, 386.
39 Legg, 1.
40 Otto G. Von Simpson, Sacred Fortress, Byzantine Art and Statecraft in Ravenna (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), 40.
41 It is likely that the omophorion began as a garment denoting the bishop’s civil, rather than spiritual, authority. It is interesting to note that even in modern liturgical practice, the bishop wears the great omophorion until the reading of the Gospel at which point he removes the great omophorion and remains without omophorion until the end of the Great Entrance at which point he dons the small omophorion (an abbreviated omophorion of rather late development). This may well hark back to an early practice in which the bishop would have worn the omophorion until the Little Entrance (i.e. the start of the Divine Liturgy proper), at which point he would have removed it for the remainder of the Divine Liturgy, from that point forward being vested as a presbyter.
42 St Germanos, On the Divine Liturgy, Paul Meyendorff, trans. (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), 69.
43 Christopher Walter, Art and Ritual of the Byzantine Church (London: Variorum Publications Ltd, 1982), 20.
44 J.W. Legg, in his Church Ornaments and their Civil Antecedents, is the only author I have found that argues for the origin of the epigonation in the tablion. While Legg’s view is considered by one respected scholar “an intuitive leap without underpinnings from visual or textual sources” (Warren Woodfin, “On Late Byzantine Liturgical Vestments and the Iconography of Sacerdotal Power,” doctoral dissertation, 1999, p. 30), as a tailor I find Legg’s argument cogent and compelling given the perfect correspondence in size and usage between the epigonation and tablion, especially given the fundamental design differences between a garment that is supposed to drape (e.g., a handkerchief) and one that is supposed to be rigid (e.g., a tablion or epigonation). Draping and rigidity are completely opposed tailoring goals and require very different modes of construction.
45 Walter, 21.
46 Warren Woodfin, “Late Byzantine Embroidered Vestments and the Iconography of Sacerdotal Power,” doctoral dissertation (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, April 2002), 31.
47 Walter, 14.
48 Walter, 14.
49 Henry Maguire, ed. Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 247.
50 Walter, 17.
51 Walter, 29–30.
CHAPTER THREE
The Garments of Salvation
My soul shall rejoice in the Lord, for he hath clothed me with the garment of salvation, and with the robe of gladness hath he encompassed me. As a bridegroom he hath set a crown upon me, and as a bride hath he adorned me with ornament, always, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.
Vesting prayer for the donning of the sticharion (Is 61.10) 1
Present-Day Usage of Orthodox Christian Vestments
Now that we have examined the origins of Orthodox Christian liturgical garments, we turn our attention to the garments as they are used today. While Orthodox Christian vestments have changed little through the centuries, making it easy to observe the basic form of their precursors in even the most contemporary vestments, please note that this chapter will focus specifically on Orthodox ecclesiastical vesture as used in North America in the early twenty-first century. Here we will describe in close detail the venerable tradition of Byzantine vesture as it is expressed in a particular time and place.
While the information provided in this chapter is as complete as possible so that it may inform current usage and provide an accurate record for posterity, the information contained here is not intended to be a do-it-yourself guide to making vestments. The study of vestment construction is no different from the other arts of the Church, such as iconography or chant, and therefore must be based upon the traditional apprentice and master model in which one desiring to learn the craft of vestments must study with a master tailor for a period of several years. During this training period, the apprentice learns how to select brocades and finishings based upon traditional color usage, is taught the correct methods of construction, and studies how the finished garments should fit and drape. An apprentice’s work is checked thoroughly by the master and in this way the apprentice learns to create vestments that fit correctly and do not deviate from traditional forms, colors, and ornamentation, thereby maintaining the long-standing stability that is so important with Orthodox Christian liturgical vesture. While this apprentice and master model may seem outdated, it is vital that this traditional method of educating ecclesiastical tailors be maintained, because it is only by handling, sewing, and working with brocades and finishings under the tutelage of an experienced master craftsman that a novice tailor learns to tell high quality from low, the valuable from the valueless, true gold from dross.
A significant difference between ancient and contemporary vestments is notable primarily in the fabrics used for their construction. Following on the heels of the discovery and commercialization of synthetic dyestuffs in the late nineteenth century (for more on this topic, please see Chapter Five), the rapid adoption of synthetic fibers such as rayon and polyester in the mid-twentieth century almost entirely eclipsed the use of the traditional fibers of silk, wool, and linen in the matter of a few short decades.2 This accounts for the
widespread use of modern, synthetic fabrics such as polyester brocades, rayon brocades, polyester satins, and even such recent innovations as polyester athletic wicking fabrics used for cassocks. As with all materials used for the adornment of the Church, conscious attention must be paid to ensure that when synthetic fibers are used they are of a good quality and made with traditional designs and colors. Computer-design technology has made this much more attainable, especially in the arena of machine-embroidered fabrics, so that we are now able to employ historic designs produced with modern technologies and materials.
Baptismal Robe
The baptismal robe is the universal garment of the Orthodox Christian Church and its basic design forms the foundation of many vestments, serving as a visible testament to one’s baptismal regeneration, whether the wearer is a newly illumined layman, altar server, deacon, presbyter, or bishop. This garment is a long tunic, worn to the feet or ankles with wide sleeves approximately twenty inches in circumference. The neck placket is comprised of a circle for the head with a long slit coming down eight to ten inches along the center front, thus facilitating the garment’s passage over the head. This neck placket is finished with galloon (decorative trim) under which the raw edge of the fabric is pressed and sewn in place to create a clean border (not with a facing as in modern garment construction). When made to fit an adult, it is cut from one whole piece of cloth with small extensions sewn onto the sleeves to add length, but when sized for infants or children, the sleeve extensions are unnecessary. A four-inch to six-inch cross is sewn to the back of the garment between the shoulder blades, which position is symbolically close to the heart. For those who are baptized in adulthood the baptismal robe may be kept to be used as a burial shroud upon death.