www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Disappointed with EWTN's Journey Home last night

Given how very recent your reception into Orthodoxy, I am rather impressed that you are already giving thought to your intended clerical attire.

You waste no time, good man!

Well, to be honest, I hadn't thought about it that much until I read Father Deacon Joseph's post about Metropolitan Philip not liking cassocks. Also, if I am accepted as a candidate for priesthood, it will be at least a few years from now and only if God wills. And who knows, God may not will such for me. But thank you for your support.

Joe

There is no actual mandate I'm aware of, but western garb is encouraged and traditional attire strongly discouraged (with things like the "fundamentalist" comment mentioned above). This is certainly true of the Eastern bishops and the House of Studies. Things may be different out west, because those bishops are of a slightly different cast than the Eastern ones.

I believe it should just be a matter of personal preference.

Has anyone ever thought of the fact than the Code of Canon Law mandates that a cleric ( and the last I knew a deacon falls in this category) must wear clerical dress.
Does a Bishop have the authority to go contrary to the Universal Laws of the Church?
I am on the Deaconate Board of our diocese for the formation of deacons and I have brought up this issue, but the general thought was, well that is just the way it is.
Maybe our Bishops need to be informed that Deacons are Clerics!
Stephanos I

Dear Fr. Stephanos:

Recently in one of his public speaking engaements, Chicago Archbishop, Francis Cardinal George, wore a black suit, black pants, and the ubiquitous Roman collar. So were the auxiliary bishops with him and the accompanying priests.

They would be indistinguishable from each other were it not for the Cardinal wearing his red biretta and the other bishops their own caps.

They were all in their "clerical dress?"

Amadeus writes that:


How's that again? The Cardinal Archbishop appeared in public wearing a black suit and the so-called "Roman Collar" (it's actually a Protestant invention, but don't tell anyone) - and all this with a red biretta on his head? I hope that's not what happened, but it certainly is what Amadeus's report adds up to.

As for deacons: they are indeed clerics in Major Orders, but recent RC practice, at least in the USA, has created a hitherto unknown distinction between the "transitional deacon" and the "permanent deacon" (I always thought that only God could foretell the future, but what do I know?). Evidently the bishops are unwilling to recognize that the so-called "permanent deacon" is genuinely a cleric in Major Orders (I devoutly hope that they haven't had the nerve to alter the ordination itself accordingly).

This is, believe it or not, reflected in liturgical vestments! At least some RC dioceses require the "permanent deacon" to wear an alb with a special sort of collar, cut in such a way as to reveal the necktie underneath - and there is a slightly different stole for the "permanent deacon". No, I am not making this up! I only wish I were.

Fr. Serge

Having been formed for diaconate prior to the establishment of our own (Passaic Eparchy) program of formation, I did my studies and formation with the RC Archdiocese of Philadelphia. I can say with certainty that the various RC dioceses/archdioceses (and Eastern Catholic Arch/Eparchies) are "all over the map" relative to the status and apparent understanding of the diaconate, and the disciplines relative to the order.
For example, in Philadelphia, when Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua was RC Archbishop of Philadelphia, "permanent" deacons dressed in secular business suits, and vested in white albs with diaconal stoles, wearing dalmatics only for "big" events, such as ordinations. When my classmates were "installed" as readers, this was done at the St. Charles Borromeo seminary chapel, at the same time as the "installation" of seminarian-priestly candidates as readers. The candidates for "permanent" diaconate processed in business suits, while the seminarians processed in cassocks (one positive-seminarians do wear the cassock at St. Charles-not the usual case in other RC seminaries). In Philadelphia, permanent deacons are addressed as "Rev. Mr". One of our eparchial deacons was formed in the diaconate program of the RC Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. I attended his ordination. A whole bundle of "permanent" deacons from that Archdiocese showed up. They were all dressed in black suits and Roman collars, identical to the dress of priests. (In my BC eparchy, priests typically wear a black suit and black shirt with Roman collar (or cassock with priestly pectoral cross), while deacons,as I understand it, when engaged in some form of diaconal ministry, can wear the cassock, or a suit with grey collar shirt with Roman collar, or secular dress. Of course, in liturgical functions, one must vest properly). A few years ago, I visited an RC church in the diocese of Camden, N.J. I picked up a parish bulletin. Listed amongst the "staff" were "Permanent Deacon: Mr. Joseph Smith, P.D." All of this is rooted in confusion as to what a deacon actually is. A lot of it has to do with the fact that, in Catholicism (other than the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, which never lost the diaconate as a permanent clerical ministry), diaconate has only recently been restored, there is virtually no memory of diaconate from the past, and there is a lot of "re-inventing of the wheel". The idea of deacons giving blessings, presiding at weddings and baptisms, and conducting burials as "ordinary" functions for them, strikes me as certainly being in the category of "re-invention". The priest in Philadelphia who taught us Sacramental Theology (he was the Archdiocesan "liturgist") once commented in class that the East "has it right" regarding the liturgical function of the deacon, commenting that the Eastern deacon normally presides over virtually nothing, and assists the priest at virtually everything.
I've always had respect for Opus Dei, but I almost "lost it" when a "Holy Cross" priest who serves Opus Dei once tried to talk me out of pursuing the "lay diaconate". I think the latter comment by that Latin Rite priest speaks volumes on the issue.

Christ Is Risen!
Dn. Robert

Dear Fr. Serge:

Obviously my mistake!

Cardinal George was wearing his red zucchetto, not his red biretta!

By the way, His Eminence is not the "Cardinal Arcbishop" of Chicago. He remains designated as a "Metropolitan Archbishop," the Chicago Archdiocese being the leader-Church of the ecclesiastical province of Chicago and its suffragan dioceses.

Even wearing the red zuchetto on the head with a business suit on the torso would cause others as well as myself to do a double-take.

Reminds me of a justly famous line from Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, God rest him among the Saints: The good Bishop was addressing a convention of nuns, also attended by a fair number of chaplains (and probably other priests who simply wanted to hear His Grace, who was an excellent speaker). This was in the late sixties or early seventies. His Grace looked out at the audience and began:

"Reverend Fathers, distinguishable sisters . . ."

For that (and a great deal more) Archbishop Fulton John should be glorified among the Saints!

Fr. Serge

For the life of me I cannot recall which episode it was of TJH in the past few months where a deacons of a Latin diocese appeared in clerics and explained in fact it WAS at the prompting of his own bishop. I believe he was supposed to NOT wear a black shirt however so he wore grey.

I knew a more traditional minded married Latin deacon who used to wear a cassock and collar under his vestments. His priest gently asked if he could perhaps wear an alb that covered it. So he did.

I have heard in certain convert circles - something the AOC has a good deal of - complaints from those whom a blogger I read (The Ochlophobist) has coined �berfromm. These �-folks tend to be converts to the East whos chrismation oil has not yet dried and who are in quest of perfect, canonical, strict Orthodoxy. Their quest leaves them suspicious of any priest who is not �ber-vostochnik in appearance, who might be caught with a beard not to his belly, or God forbid, western clerics and a clean shave. To these folks form is inseperable from faith. Contradict the form, and the faith is questioned.

And this is not isolated to EO converts. More than a few Catholics I have met are enamored with - to be charitable - some cassock-wearing scoundrels.

Folks long familiar with some of the pastoral issues that have been dealt with in the AOC can have an understanding of some of the good bishop's leariness over some demonstrations of outward piety and form.

Some several years ago as a college student I ran into this "ochen vostochnik" "monk" on the campus of my state uni. with a beard he hoped would one day reach his knees, and a chotki long enough lasso a bull he was under the omophor of some Ukrainian Old Calendarist fellow out of Cleveland or Detroit or Hoboken or Toledo. I lose track. This fellow, so far off the canonical radar he was almost floating in space with the vagantes.

He wasted little time in our discussions of getting to his distaste for "those modern new calendarists with their shaved faces, 'Daffy Duck' collars, and ecumenical evils. Do you know this that and the other priest/bishop allows non-Orthodox to come to vespers???? The prayers of the Orthodox may not mingle with the prayers of the heterodox! If they are in temple they must be silent!"

I would like to say this man was isolated and not taken seriously - to be sure he is almost a laughable charicature of some of the most virulent strain of convert seekers. Sadly, hints and overtones of even some of these thoughts have lead to schism and trouble in more than one situation. The AOC has seen its share already of folks who have caused division.

The Good Metropolitan is right to be cautious. And from where I sit, I am not sure I can say how or where he should draw that line.

I'm no traditionalist, so I'm certainly no torchbearer for that cause, but I hardly think having Orthodox clerics wear attire of their own tradition is a concessions to hyper-traditionalists nor a form of "fundamentalism". The fact is there is a form of reverse extremism, and I think this is something of a display of it. What you will also see argued is the fallacious idea that traditional clerical attire represents the "Turkokratia", and therefore should be shed; or simply things like "it doesn't matter what they wear" will be used to explain why Orthodox priests are told not to dress like Orthodox priests.

The days of having an inferiority complex in the face of mainline Protestantism are over, so I personally think it's sad that there are hierarchs who think its necessary to dress like something outside of ones tradition.

To each their own though, they're not my bishops.

Jut curious, but was this deacon one of the "Ben Lomand" group?
[/quote]

No they were on the West Coast area, I was living on Cape Cod MA.

Peace,
Deacon Joseph

Please keep in mind that being married with children is one of the reasons behind many good priests not wearing a cassock in public.

Often time, their wives don't want it, and their children don't want it. Not all wives of priests and their children homeschool. Many priests need to do all the public 'daddy' stuff and 'husband' stuff that other men do.

This is not Italy and this is not Greece where clerics in long black robes are seen everywhere. The U.S. has different sensibilities because of its diversity of religions, and the families of priests are very often sensitive to these sensibilities.

I know of one priest who is very traditional, and always wears his cassock when he is attending to church related business--visiting homes for blessings, hospitals, church related conferences, wakes, etc...but on his day off with his wife and children, he will wear jeans, a baseball hat, and a shirt with Western clerical collar. I think that his approach is a good and balanced one. He is neither a priest who will never wear a cassock, nor is he a priest who will always wear a cassock everywhere.

As long as priests are married, this is something the Orthodox laity in the U.S., must be sensitive to. We need to honor and respect whatever choice they make, and to remember that any person's outward appearance has little to do with their heart and soul.

In Christ,
Alice

I think that Alice has stated it correctly. There is a time and place for everything. I will agree that Byzantine clergy (and especially Byzantine Catholic clergy) in America do not always dress appropriately when about prayer and Church business. But at home, or on a day trip with the family, common sense in dress should rule.

This is not a matter of teaching children that they must separate their religious life from real life. If I was at the beach on a sunny, 95 degree summer's day and saw a priest and his family on vacation with him wearing any sort of clerics I would not think, "What a wonderful witness of his vocation". I would think, "Is he nuts?"

I am aware of one Byzantine bishop who gave a retreat given at a large hotel in a part of the country that is sunny and warm. He dressed appropriately. At the end of the day no one was offended when he passed through the lobby wearing shorts, a t-shirt and sneaks to take a very long walk. Or later, when he jumped into the pool without his klobuk!

Alice good points- I like your example about the guy wearing jeans and a ball when not in engaged in ministry.

I have also heard and read, sadly- when the sexual abuse scandal was hot in the news, that there were some priests (Catholic, Orthodox, Episcopal, and others) who did not wear their clerical clothing in public because they were wary of being identified as a Catholic priests. Hopefully, that moment is past.