Talk:Reader (minor orders)

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[edit] Roman Catholic vestment

From the 2003 General Instruction to the Roman Missal: 339. In the dioceses of the United States of America, acolytes, altar servers, lectors, and other lay ministers may wear the alb or other suitable vesture or other appropriate and dignified clothing.

It is not a requirement that all instituted lectors wear vestments. The Introduction to the 1998 Lectionary for Mass is an obsolete reference; the 2003 GIRM was confirmed by the offices of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, March 17, 2003, by order of the Prefect, Francis Cardinal Arinze, and stands as the current valid reference.

I am again correcting the entry; if anyone has contrary evidence newer than the 2003 GIRM, please present it here. Essjay 21:59, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

Just clarifying: I'm not involved in the Orthodox vestment debate; my concern is only with the section on Roman Catholicism. However, I will note, there seems to be a lot of different practices occurring, both in the Catholic and the Orthodox traditions. Essjay (talk) 14:53, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Orthodox vestment

I've tried to clarify the current practice of vesting in sticharion. Even in my own limited experience, the variety of different usages is quite vast; I've seen readers serving as acolytes read while vested in sticharion, readers in cassock only, readers put on a sticharion over either cassock or street clothes just for the epistle reading, readers (both tonsured and those blessed for the occasion) in street clothes. In fact, just about the only thing I haven't seen is a reader's phelonion over street clothes, but I'm sure someone out there is doing just that. I know that Csernica wants to make clear that this is more than just local custom, but I'm not sure that we can. Thus the bit about the bishop or the priest making the determination. I've added a link to Bishop Tikhon's Liturgical Order #1 as an example of a bishop's decree for the practice within his own diocese. JHCC 14:42, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry; I must not have been clear. I was trying to acknowledge that vesting is in fact determined by local custom but with "local" being defined on the diocesan level, and where Readers are expected to be vested, it's not really a question of "may" (which suggests it's optional) but "shall". Whether or not it ought to be local custom, particularly within a single juristiction or local Church, is a different question I have not researched. I'm also not certain that the custom of vesting in the stikharion is strictly due to readers serving as acolytes: the stikharion really is the baptismal garment and the "foundational" vestment common to all orders. If readers were not to wear them when vested, they'd be the only order where this is so not excluding the laity.

"Reader's phelonion over street clothes" -- as it happens, that's what I wore briefly at my own tonsuring, since it happened on very short notice and I didn't own a podriasnik at the time. Csernica 17:34, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ah, we are in agreement, then. I meant "may vest" in the sense of "this varies from place to place", not in the sense of "the reader has the choice of whether to vest or not."

As for the historical use of the sticharion, an interesting question here is "what would be worn when the entire choir would be tonsured readers?" (as in ancient Byzantium). I've seen Byzantine icons showing singers in something like a riassa, with a rather odd pointy hat (sorry, I can't find an image to link to). It does generally seem to be the case now that a reader will only wear a sticharion when reading a lesson in the Divine Liturgy, but not when participating in the DL by singing in the choir.

The tonsuring service itself is a bit of an oddity: the bishop vests the Reader in short phelonion [1] and gives him the Apostol to read, the subdeacons lead him to the center of the church, he reads, and the subdeacons remove the short phelonion, vest him in the sticharion, and bring him to the bishop for the final exhortation [2]. As far as I know, this is the only ordination where the ordinand has a vestment removed and replaced with another. JHCC 18:50, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

So you wrote "may" where I would have written "might". Probably just a dialectical difference of no real import unless you're an annoying, nitpicky person like me.

I think you mean "dialectal", unless you're getting Marxist on me.

Nope! Not really Hegelian either. Possibly Socratic, except on Wednesdays and Fridays.

How's this? The two standing behind the emperor and his mother. Ya know, if someone started a movement to bring back the pointy hat I bet they'd gain followers. Especially if they managed to dredge up a lengthy Greek name for it. I wonder if the "riassa" is really a stikharion in plain silk. It's rather hard to tell on those icons. Csernica 19:50, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. This wasn't the icon I had in mind, but the getup is the same. Note also the hand position of the fellow on the left. He's not a priest; is he giving a blessing? Well, according to Richard Schneider (Professor of Iconology at SVS), this probably is a hand-signal for giving the tone of the next hymn. JHCC 20:13, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Are you in any of those pictures you've been linking to? Csernica 21:31, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm not a monk at Decani, if that's what you're asking. JHCC 03:17, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The SVS pictures, you silly person. Or was that someone else adding those? (I was thinking of some of the other articles too.) Csernica 06:34, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've found that the SVS website is a very good resource for photos for linking, but I've linked to plenty of other sites as well. The OCA website is good, and I love the photos from Decani (see here). JHCC 17:25, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Just wondering. I know one of the people who appears in many of them, and the picture you used to illustrate a subdeacon's orarion is actually from his ordination to the diaconate. Csernica 19:36, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If you're referring to this one [3], yes, I did put that link in. However, since it is before his diaconal ordination, he is still a subdeacon in that photo (as are the two gentlemen with him), although not for much longer. Interestingly enough, the gentleman on the left has since been ordained deacon as well [4]. JHCC 13:35, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Getting back to the vestment question, further research tells me that the sticharion is here used as it would be with any serving clergy member: to set the reader apart from the laity as he performs his liturgical function. It is not a mark of rank or "the distinctive vestment of their office" (as with the Roman Catholics), even if the knowledgeable observer can deduce that someone wearing a cassock and sticharion with no other vestments is most likely a reader. JHCC 17:39, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This is correct, and I hope I didn't say anything to suggest that there was any distinction to wearing a stikharion. Although really, not even the podriasnik/anteri is necessarily clerical since laymen can be blessed to wear them too. (I've never heard of a non-monastic layman being blessed to wear a riassa/exorasson.) Csernica 19:36, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I put a paragraph in the Orthodox section for Vestment to clarify this. Please take a look; I value your input. JHCC 13:35, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I saw it earlier, and I thought it very good. Csernica 05:48, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)