The Garments of Salvation
Page 23
Vegetative Motifs
While vegetative symbols might most precisely be encompassed within the category of floral motifs, there are some distinctive symbols contained within this cornucopia. The pineapple, often situated in an urn, was an ancient symbol of hospitality, so its adaptation as a Christian symbol is easy to understand. Urns were an essential decorative element of Classical art and, because of this pedigree, were a treasured element within the canon of Byzantine symbols as well.
The ultimate vegetative design within Christianity is the grapevine. Winding its beautiful way through stunning textiles, golden chalices, intricate jewelry, glimmering mosaics, and virtually all types of art made in Byzantium and every Christian country and culture since, the grapevine is second only to the cross and abounds with a multiplicity of symbological associations.
First and foremost, the grapevine symbolizes the Holy Mysteries and the transformation of wine into the Blood of Christ. Still other meanings are found within the Scriptures. In the Gospel of John (15.5) Christ tells his disciples, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” Christ’s words serve as a reminder not only of man’s place in the universe, a branch dependant on the loving mercy of Christ the vine, but also as an admonition that in the Christian life we are called to bear spiritual fruit, as described in St Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (5.22–23): “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” The grapevine is arguably the most multifaceted of Christian symbols, both in its symbological connotations and in its ornamental representations. In this capacity it also serves as the premier visual expression of the concept of multi-layered symbology found within the aesthetic tradition of the Orthodox Christian Church.
The Legacy of Orthodox Christian Textiles
While many historic brocade designs and textile symbols have continued in use from the fall of Constantinople to the present day, the collapse of the great center of silk and dye manufacturing has had lasting repercussions on the availability of textiles for use within the Orthodox Christian Church and has left the Church somewhat open to various Western aesthetic influences.
Happily though, the great legacy of Orthodox Christian textile art has prevailed and it is delightful to see the wide variety of textiles and symbols that still flourish in Orthodox churches today. This continuity seems rather improbable, given the complete collapse of silk manufacturing following the fall of Constantinople, but a passage from the Cambridge Medieval History of Byzantium provides illumination:
It is somewhat surprising to see that Byzantium was still capable of inspiring an artistic movement destined to exert a lasting influence among peoples so different, and in the face of the rapid progress of western experiments in art. This success is no doubt partly accounted for by the large numbers of craftsmen in the great city on the Bosphorus, unrivalled by those of any other town or region of eastern Europe at that time. But the main reason is to be found in its position as the Centre of Orthodoxy which it always retained; this gave it a prestige which was reflected in all it produced, especially in its religious art. The great work of the Palaeologian period [AD 1259 to 1453] is almost exclusively ecclesiastical, and for this reason, quite apart from any aesthetic considerations, it was welcomed with open arms in all countries looking to Constantinople as the capital of their faith. Yet it was not a uniform art which thus radiated outwards from Byzantium: it was continually subjected to local influences and acquired in varying degrees a specialized and localized character. Thus, in the thirteenth century the development of autonomous schools began, not only in Serbia and Bulgaria but also at Mistra and perhaps in Macedonia, that is to say in both Slav and Greek countries. The capitals of little principalities and the palaces of their rulers, of differing races but united by their Orthodox faith, became for a time centres of a flourishing religious art which, within the general Palaeologian framework, showed distinct variations—local dialects rather than separate languages. This regrouping of creative artistic forces widened the Byzantine outlook in a way unknown in the previous period.33
The liturgical textile traditions of the Orthodox Christian Church are alive and well as can be seen in the small sampling of brocades in current use as seen in Figures 20 through 23 and the remarkable continuum of both designs and symbols as well as their affinity with the ancient brocades:
Figure 20 Polyester brocade, Greece, “Ravenna” design.
Figure 21 Polyester brocade, Greece, “Alexandria” design.
Figure 22 Polyester brocade, Greece, “Paschal” design.
Figure 23 Metallic brocade, Greece, “Jerusalem” design.
Such continuity, an artistic chain forged for the glory of God and unbroken for two millennia, is a cause for great rejoicing. Just as in Constantinople so long ago, it continues to be true that we Orthodox Christians “are what we wear” and we are thus justified in treasuring and revering our liturgical vestments and textiles as our true garments of salvation. May we continue to reap the glorious spiritual fruits of this heavenly heritage!
Notes
1 Eleni Vlachopoulou-Karabina, Holy Monastery of Iveron Gold Embroideries (Mount Athos: Holy Monastery of Iveron, 1998), 9.
2 Gervase Mathew, Byzantine Aesthetics (London: John Murray, 1963), 11.
3 Mathew, 87.
4 Adele Weibel, Two Thousand Years of Textiles (New York NY: Pantheon Books, 1952), 16.
5 Pauline Johnstone, Byzantine Tradition in Church Embroidery (London: Alec Tiranti, 1967), 10.
6 G. A. Farber, Notes on Dyeing and Tanning in Classical Antiquity (CIBA Review 1937), 296.
7 Despite the fact that no direct evidence survives, it is likely that early phelonia were made from wool, given the ubiquitous use of wool in Roman world and the conversely limited use of linen. Wool is an ideal textile for the cut and fit of the paenula, the outer cloak that was the direct precursor to the phelonion.
8 Janet Mayo, A History of Ecclesiastical Dress (London: Batsford, 1984), 15.
9 Farber, 297.
10 Weibel, 5.
11 Robert Sabatino Lopez, “Silk Industry in the Byzantine Empire,” Speculum, Vol. 20, No. 1 (January 1945): 20.
12 David Jacoby, “Silk Economics and Cross-Cultural Artistic Interaction: Byzantium, the Muslin World, and the Christian West,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 58 (2004): 215.
13 A personal favorite from among all the cassocks I have designed was made from a silk and wool blend fabric. This blend made an impression on me as it seemed to have all of the positive attributes of each fiber, without any negative ones: it was light, breathable, and had a particularly lovely, understated sheen from the silk fibers.
14 Lopez, 1.
15 Lopez, 4.
16 Lopez, 5.
17 Lopez, 22.
18 Lopez, 8-9.
19 Lopez, 41.
20 Jacoby, 228.
21 Jacoby, 229.
22 Slobodan Curcic, ed. Architecture as Icon: Perception and Representation of Architecture in Byzantine Art, exhibition catalog (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), 7.
23 Mathew, 1.
24 Henry Maguire, “Garments Pleasing to God: The Significance of Domestic Textile Designs in the Early Byzantine Period,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 44 (1990): 216.
25 Jacoby, 222.
26 Anna Gonosova, “The Formation and Sources of Early Byzantine Floral Semis and Floral Diaper Patterns Reexamined,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 41 (1987): 230.
27 Jacoby, 230.
28 Warren Woodfin, “On Late Byzantine Liturgical Vestments and the Iconography of Sacerdotal Power,” doctoral dissertation (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1999), 226–8.
29 O. M. Dalton, Byzantine Art and Archaeology (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications), 690.
30 W.R. Lethaby, “Byzantine Silks in London Museums,” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 24, N
o. 129 (1913): 143.
31 Dalton, 688–9.
32 Lethaby, 146.
33 J.M. Hussey, ed., The Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. IV: The Byzantine Empire, Part II: Government, Church and Civilisation (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 348.
Afterword
While we do see a truly remarkable historical continuum in the vestments and paraments of the Orthodox Christian Church, along with the textiles and symbols used for their manufacture and adornment, as a professional ecclesiastical tailor, I believe that we stand at a crossroads in the aesthetic history of the Orthodox Christian Church. This belief is rooted in the almost twenty years I have spent working with deacons, priests, bishops, and laity throughout North America. During this time, I have witnessed a promising shift toward the use of more traditional brocade designs and colors as well as a desire on the part of both the laity and the clergy to become more educated about our glorious vestment tradition. Giving lectures at the various Orthodox seminaries as well as some parish settings brings me great joy as I see the faithful hearken after the historic “look” of the Church, even if they are initially ignorant about how to achieve the particulars.
Yet, despite these happy occurrences which make my work such a blessing, I still deal with such frustrating situations as a parish community that has spent millions in building a new church only to request the least expensive fabrics or galloons to outfit their altar (“whatever you have that’s cheap” is the common request), or the church school coordinator who calls me wanting samples of the “six liturgical colors,” or the photos I see that depict a church with astounding iconography on an elaborately carved iconostasis only to show the priest in the poorest-quality vestments made from Western textile designs.
I take heart from the resurgent interest in traditional Orthodox Christian textiles and vestments, but at the same time I am gravely aware that if this interest does not become a universal return to the reverence for vestments and altar furnishings previous generations knew and valued, we are in danger of losing this precious legacy.
By far and away, the most pernicious influence on our vestment tradition today is the creeping assumption that vestments just aren’t that important. Churches spend millions on architecture and iconography and yet I can count on one hand the number of communities I have worked with who have beautification committees devoted to the adornment of the church through vestments and altar furnishings.
Meanwhile, we have reached an all-time historical low in the casualness of our daily secular dress and this change in popular culture, in which a woman can be considered at the height of fashion by wearing the right brand of jeans to church, has negatively influenced not only our society, but more to the point, our liturgical traditions. When I began as a tailor, it was the norm for priests to wear some kind of collared shirt underneath their cassocks; after all, most professional men were still wearing shirts, ties, and jackets. But over the last two decades, I have witnessed a shockingly swift change in expectations of professional dress, including that of the clergy (needless to say, I am not a fan of “Casual Fridays”). Now, I struggle to educate my clientele that their cassock really will fit better and look more seemly if they wear a collared shirt underneath, but I know that I have failed once again when I hear the oft-repeated phrase “Oh, I’ll just wear a T-shirt underneath”; after all, a growing number of my clientele has never even owned a collared shirt.
In an age where more formal dress was expected and respected, people knew their textiles. A man knew how to buy a good-quality wool suit and a woman knew the difference between rayon and real silk. Clothes were designed to last and fashions changed at a much slower pace. While a parish then might not have been able to afford a hand-embroidered, real metal thread epitaphios, they knew that it was higher-quality, and therefore, better, than the machine-embroidered version their budget necessitated they purchase.
Along with the move towards more casual dress has come the advent of lightning-fast changes in the secular fashion industry and a “throwaway” clothing culture has emerged, virtually gutting the supply of high-quality fabrics available to the small workshop that produces Orthodox Christian vestments. Interfacings are just one small example of this phenomenon—most are now designed with a maximum two-year intended lifespan, which means that when they are used in liturgical vestments they will begin to disintegrate in just twelve months, drastically shortening the lifespan of the vestments and causing unnecessary waste and expense.
But of far more dire consequence to the Church’s liturgical garment tradition is the absurdly high value the secular fashion scene places on appearance over substance. As long as it looks OK, it is OK, the thinking goes and the resulting theory that quality no longer matters has been the single most discouraging assumption I have encountered in my time as a church tailor. All too often, I see clergy and laity approach the procurement of vestments and paraments in the same manner they would purchase their own clothes at the local discount store and this proves to be quite problematic, both practically and spiritually. In the first case, it results in poor-quality items that degrade far too quickly, and in the second, it puts adorning the Church, the very Kingdom of Heaven on earth in which the angels and saints are present, on a par with buying a sweatshirt. The caricatures of vestments so obtained, looking like a loan from the wardrobe department of an epic movie of the 1960s, lead to poor liturgizing and a lost opportunity for making Paradise real to each soul that walks through the doors of the church.
Cheap clothes we have everywhere, the Kingdom of heaven we do not.
And, so while an overview of historical textiles and liturgical garments is supremely edifying—after all, our priests still wear the same liturgical garments that St John Chrysostom or St John of Damascus did—we must labor untiringly to preserve this tradition and protect it from the weak fiber of the modern world in which we live. To do so is a holy work and one that brings great blessing, as I can personally attest. As the priest says at the end of every Divine Liturgy “Sanctify those who love the beauty of Your house.”
May it be blessed!
Khouria Krista West
APPENDIX A
Care and Laundering of Orthodox Liturgical Vestments and Paraments1
Proper Cleaning of Vestments and Paraments
In general or when in doubt, all vestments should be dry-cleaned. This includes deacons’, priests’, and bishops’ vestments as well as altar servers’ robes and all paraments (altar cloths and fabric hangings). However, some vestments are machine-washable (e.g., “woven” vestments and pre-washed poly-cotton poplin priests’ sticharia) and in these cases the items should be washed with cold water on the delicate or hand-wash cycle and then hung to dry (never put in a heated dryer). The best care for washable vestments is to wash them by hand in a large tub with cool water and a soap-based cleanser rather than a detergent. Detergent is harsher on fabrics and will cause dye bleeding, making the vestments degrade faster over time. Vestments that are dry-cleaned should never be stored in the drycleaner’s plastic wraps as the off-gassing of the plastic can cause the brocade to discolor.
Vestments that are worn frequently, such as bright vestments used nearly every Sunday, should be cleaned once or twice a year; vestments used less frequently can be cleaned every year or two. Altar cloths require only infrequent dry-cleaning—once every three or four years usually suffices—though they should be brushed regularly (a brass-bristle tailor’s brush works best) to remove dust.
Cleaning Velvet
To clean velvet on a regular basis, simply use a lint roller to pick up dust or debris or a soft brush and a vacuum. Dry-clean periodically as needed.
Removing Wax on Vestments
Lay the stained area out on an ironing board. Place a paper towel under the wax stain and a paper towel on top of the wax stain, “sandwiching” the stain. Using a warm iron without steam, gently rub the tip of the iron back and forth over the stain. The paper towel will begin to absorb the wax. Reposit
ion the paper towel frequently until it is no longer absorbing wax. Have item dry-cleaned as soon as possible to remove the residue from the wax stain. This technique can also be used on zostika and exorasa.
Proper Care of Communion Cloths
Note that only a priest or deacon is permitted to handle and launder used communion cloths. Place a mesh laundry bag in the sacristy where it will receive plenty of air circulation (it can be mounted on the wall with cup hooks). After the use of a communion cloth, place it unfolded in the mesh bag until the time of laundering. This prevents the consecrated wine from permanently staining the fabric. Wash the cloths by hand and make sure all water used is reverently drained into the ground (not a sewer). For communion cloths that are already badly stained, first rinse in the proper manner, then soak the cloths in a solution of one gallon of warm water mixed with one cup of non-chlorine bleach powder (Biz brand works well) for up to three days. Proceed to launder the cloths as usual.
Rotating Vestments
One of the best ways to prolong the life of vestments is to regularly rotate them. This means using several different sets of bright vestments for Sundays so that a single set is not used excessively. This might, for instance, mean wearing a blue or green set occasionally for Sunday use in order to give a heavily used gold/white set a rest. It might also mean budgeting for a second bright/every-Sunday set before acquiring additional colors of vestments.