What do the colors in the church mean: why do priests wear purple or white, why are churches sometimes red or green, and some have 1 cupola, and some have as many as 15. I tried to systematize everything and supplement the material with photographs.
I would especially like to remind you that it is not appropriate for a Christian, Baptized in Orthodoxy, not to go to church for more than 3 Sundays in a row. For Salvation is not in the symbols we are now discussing, but in deeds.
However, often it is symbols: beautiful singing, rich decoration and clothing that become the first step on the path to practical Orthodoxy...
A little about strange beliefs
Any church of God has a Holy Altar - the place where the main Orthodox service - the Liturgy - is performed. And the Liturgy can only be celebrated on the Antimension - a plate in which the bishop, during the consecration of the temple, sews up a special capsule with the relics of the Saints. Those. There are always pieces of Holy relics in the temple. But now the temple is consecrated in honor of some holiday (and not for “health” and “peace”). There may be several altars in a temple, but there is always a main one, after which it is named, and there are side chapels. You've probably heard: Trinity churches - in honor of the feast of the Holy Trinity, or Pentecost, which occurs on the 50th day after Easter, there are Annunciation churches - the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (April 7), there are St. Nicholas churches - in honor of Nicholas the World of Lycia the Wonderworker, etc. This means that the main altar of the temple was consecrated in honor of this holiday. All Sacraments (Baptism-Confirmation, Confession, Communion, Wedding) can take place in any Orthodox church. The exceptions are monasteries; in them, as a rule, the Sacraments of Marriages (and sometimes Baptisms) are not performed. It was also strange to hear the superstition that in a church with red exterior walls it is impossible to get married and baptize children. Don't listen to such horror stories, it's all nonsense.
About flowers
In Orthodoxy they use: Yellow, White Blue (Blue), Green, Red, Purple, Black and Burgundy. Each of the flowers in the Church has a symbolic meaning:
Yellow (Gold) - Royal color. For vestments it is used on most days of the year.
The white color of vestments is used when performing the Sacraments of Baptism and Priesthood (ordination of the clergy), on the holidays of the Nativity of Christ, Holy Epiphany, Candlemas, Lazarus Saturday, Ascension, Transfiguration, on the days of remembrance of the dead and the funeral rite.
The color red is used from Easter to Ascension, and at other times on the days of remembrance of martyrs, symbolizing their closeness in martyrdom with Christ and the Resurrection.
Green is the color of life-giving and eternal life - green vestments are used on the Feast of the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), on the day of Holy Pentecost (Trinity), as well as on Holidays in memory of saints, ascetics, and holy fools.
Blue (blue) color symbolizes the highest purity and innocence - vestments of blue (blue) color are used on the feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The purple color symbolizes the Cross and the Passion of Christ - purple vestments are used on the Feasts of the Life-giving Cross of the Lord (Cross Veneration Week of Lent, Origin (wearing out) of the honorable trees of the Life-giving Cross of the Lord on August 14, Exaltation of the Cross), as well as on Sundays during Lent, on Maundy Thursday of Holy Week.
Black is the color of fasting and repentance - Lenten vestments are usually black or very dark shades of blue, purple, and are used during the weeks of Great Lent.
Burgundy (Crimson) color symbolizes blood and martyrdom. Burgundy vestments are used very rarely - on days of special commemoration of martyrs (red vestments are also used) and on Holy Thursday, the day of the establishment of the Last Supper (purple vestments are also used on this day).
And if the color of the vestments is recommended, then there is no strict rule (Charter Instruction or Canon) for choosing the color of the temple walls or domes. During construction, the architect is puzzled by this. Throughout life, the color of the walls can change: a new abbot has come, and the temple is no longer yellow, but blue. Often churches are left unplastered, and then the walls have the color of brick: red or white. However, the color of the walls is still given according to tradition. Thus, the walls of churches consecrated in honor of the Most Holy Theotokos are most often painted blue (blue is the color of the Holy Spirit). The walls of the Holy Cross Churches are painted in a rare purple color. Green is the color most often found on Trinity churches. The red color is more often found at Resurrection churches or at churches dedicated to the memory of the Holy Martyrs. Yellow wall color is a universal color, the color of Truth. Just as yellow (golden) clothes are used in worship whenever there is no need to use clothes of a different color (more on this later), yellow can also be found on the walls of temples very often. The white color of the walls may mean that the church was built quite recently and they haven’t gotten around to painting it yet, or it may also mean that the parish does not have enough money for painting. White is no less universal color than yellow. And I repeat - the color of the walls can symbolize something, but not necessarily.
About the number of temple domes
The dome of the temple does not depict Christ, it is a symbol of Him. In the traditions of the Church, color is considered to have a symbolic meaning.
Gold is a symbol of Truth. Historically, the domes of the main cathedrals were gilded, but recently this tradition has not been maintained.
Silvery domes are found mainly at churches in honor of saints.
Green domes - at churches in honor of the Trinity or St.
Blue domes (often with stars) are at churches in honor of the Mother of God feasts.
Black domes are often found in monasteries, although the copper used to cover the domes quickly darkens and the domes become dark green.
There are also quite exotic ones - for example, St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg. This is what they try to be guided by when choosing the color of the domes.
The main temples and the temples dedicated to Christ and the twelve feasts had golden domes.
Blue domes with stars crown churches dedicated to the Mother of God, because the star recalls the birth of Christ from the Virgin Mary.
Trinity churches had green domes, because green is the color of the Holy Spirit.
Temples dedicated to saints are often topped with green or silver domes.
In monasteries there are black domes - this is the color of monasticism.
The number of domes on the temple also has symbolism. One dome symbolizes the One God, two - the two natures of Christ: human and Divine, two denotes something fundamental (two tablets of the Decalogue, two pillars at the gates of the Temple, the Law and the Prophets, personified on the Mount of Transfiguration by Moses and Elijah, the departure of the apostles in twos, two witnesses Christ at the end of times in Rev. 11:3), three - the Holy Trinity, four - Universality (four cardinal directions), the Four Gospels; five domes - Christ and the four evangelists, six - the number of days of the creation of the world, seven chapters - the seven Sacraments of the Church; eight - Eight souls were saved by Noah after the Great Flood; on the eighth day there is the Feast of Tabernacles, Circumcision, etc.; nine domes - according to the number of angelic ranks, according to the number of beatitudes; 10 - one of the symbols of complete completeness (10 Egyptian plagues, 10 commandments) 12 -
According to the number of apostles, thirteen are Christ and the twelve apostles, 15 are the fifteen steps to Easter, the Proverbs of Holy Saturday number 15, revealing the events in the Old Testament from the creation of the world to the Resurrection. The number of chapters can reach up to thirty-three - according to the number of years of the Savior’s earthly life. However, the color and number of domes is determined by the architect’s idea and the possibilities of the arrival in any variations. There is no canonical indication of the number and color of cupolas.
The color scheme of liturgical vestments consists of the following primary colors: red, white, gold (yellow), green, blue (light blue), purple, black. They all symbolize the spiritual meanings of the saints and sacred events being celebrated. On Orthodox icons, the colors in the depiction of faces, robes, objects, the background itself, or “light”, as it was accurately called in ancient times, also have a deeply symbolic meaning.
Red. The Feast of Feasts - Easter of Christ begins in white vestments as a sign of Divine light. But already the Easter Liturgy (in some churches it is customary to change vestments, so that the priest appears each time in vestments of a different color) and the entire week is served in red vestments. Red clothes are often used before Trinity. The feasts of martyrs adopted the red color of liturgical vestments as a sign that the blood shed by them for their faith in Christ was evidence of their fiery love for the Lord.
The white color of liturgical vestments is adopted on the holidays of the Nativity of Christ, Epiphany, and Annunciation because it signifies the uncreated Divine Light coming into the world and sanctifying God’s creation, transforming it. For this reason, they also serve in white vestments on the feasts of the Transfiguration and Ascension of the Lord. White color is also adopted for funeral services and commemoration of the dead, because it very clearly expresses the meaning and content of funeral prayers, which ask for repose with the saints for those who have departed from earthly life, in the villages of the righteous, clothed, according to Revelation, in the Kingdom of Heaven in the white vestments of the Divine Sveta. White is the Angelic color, and it is the Angels who greet all those who have departed to the Lord.
Sundays, the memory of the apostles, prophets, and saints are celebrated in golden (yellow) colored vestments, since this is directly related to the idea of Christ as the King of Glory and the Eternal Bishop and of those His servants who in the Church signified His presence and had the fullness of grace highest degree of priesthood.
Feasts of Our Lady are marked by the color blue. The blue color symbolizes Her heavenly purity and purity.
The green color of vestments for the days of remembrance of ascetics and saints means that spiritual feat, while killing the sinful principles of the lower human will, does not kill the person himself, but revives him by combining him with Jesus Christ the King of Glory (yellow color) and the grace of the Holy Spirit (blue color) to eternal life and renewal of all human nature. On the Feasts of the Holy Trinity and the Day of the Holy Spirit, green clothes are worn. And the ordinary earthly greenery of trees, forests and fields has always been perceived with religious feeling, as a symbol of life, spring, renewal.
If the spectrum of sunlight is represented in the form of a circle so that its ends are connected, then it turns out that the violet color is the mediastinum of two opposite ends of the spectrum - red and cyan (blue). In paints, the color violet is formed by combining these two opposite colors. Thus, violet color combines the beginning and end of the light spectrum. This color is appropriated to the memories of the Cross and Lenten services, where the suffering and Crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of people are remembered. The Lord Jesus said about Himself: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the First and the Last” (Rev. 22:13). The Savior's death on the cross was the repose of the Lord Jesus Christ from His works of saving man in earthly human nature. This corresponds to the repose of God from the works of creating the world on the seventh day, after the creation of man. Violet is the seventh color from red, from which the spectral range begins. The purple color inherent in the memory of the Cross and Crucifixion, containing red and blue colors, also denotes a certain special presence of all the Hypostases of the Holy Trinity in the feat of the cross of Christ. And at the same time, the color violet can express the idea that by His death on the Cross Christ conquered death, since combining the two extreme colors of the spectrum together does not leave any place for blackness in the vicious circle of colors thus formed, as a symbol of death. The color violet is striking in its deepest spirituality. As a sign of higher spirituality, combined with the idea of the Savior’s feat on the cross, this color is used for the bishop’s mantle, so that the Orthodox bishop, as it were, is fully clothed in the feat of the cross of the Heavenly Bishop, whose image and imitator the bishop is in the Church. The award purple skufiyas and kamilavkas of the clergy have similar semantic meanings.
The most significant difference between the “pagan” period of color symbolism and the “Christian” period lies, first of all, in the fact that light and color finally cease to be identified with God and mystical forces, but become their attributes, qualities and signs.
According to Christian canons, God created the world, including light (color), but it itself cannot be reduced to light. Medieval theologians (for example, Aurelius Augustine), praising light and color as manifestations of the divine, nevertheless point out that they (colors) can also be deceptive (from Satan) and their identification with God is a delusion and even sin.
Only White color remains an unshakable symbol of holiness and spirituality. Particularly important was the meaning of white as purity and innocence, liberation from sins. Angels, saints, and the risen Christ are depicted in white robes. White robes were worn by newly converted Christians.
Also, white is the color of baptism, communion, the holidays of the Nativity of Christ, Easter, and Ascension. In the Orthodox Church, white is used in all services from Easter to Trinity Day.
The Holy Spirit is depicted as a white dove. The white lily symbolizes purity and accompanies images of the Virgin Mary.
White does not have negative meanings in Christianity.
Positive symbolic meaning prevailed in early Christianity yellow, as the colors of the Holy Spirit, divine revelation, enlightenment, etc.
But later, yellow takes on a negative meaning. In the Gothic era, it begins to be considered the color of treason, betrayal, deceit, and jealousy. In church art, Cain and the traitor Judas Iscariot were often depicted with yellow beards.
The color gold is used in Christian painting as an expression of divine revelation. The golden radiance embodies the eternal divine light. Many people perceive the golden color as starlight descending from heaven.
Red in Christianity it symbolizes the blood of Christ, shed for the salvation of people, and, consequently, his love for people. This is the color of the fire of faith, martyrdom and the passion of the Lord, as well as the royal triumph of justice and victory over evil.
Red is the color of services on the feast of the Holy Spirit, Palm Resurrection, during Holy Week, and on the days of remembrance of martyrs who shed blood for their faith.
The red rose indicates the shed blood and wounds of Christ, the cup that receives the “holy blood.” Therefore, it symbolizes rebirth in this context.
Joyful events dedicated to Christ, the Mother of God and the saints were marked in red on the calendar. The tradition came to us from the church calendar to highlight holiday dates in red.
Easter of Christ in churches begins in white vestments as a sign of Divine light. But already the Easter Liturgy (in some churches it is customary to change vestments, so that the priest appears each time in vestments of a different color) and the entire week is served in red vestments. Red clothes are often used before Trinity.
Blue- this is the color of heaven, truth, humility, immortality, chastity, piety, baptism, harmony. He expressed the idea of self-sacrifice and meekness.
The blue color seems to mediate the connection between the heavenly and the earthly, between God and the world. As the color of air, blue expresses a person’s readiness to accept for himself the presence and power of God, blue has become the color of faith, the color of fidelity, the color of desire for something mysterious and wonderful.
Blue is the color of the Virgin Mary, and she is usually depicted wearing a blue cloak. Mary in this meaning is the Queen of Heaven, who covers with this cloak, protects and saves believers (Pokrovsky Cathedral). In the paintings of churches dedicated to the Mother of God, the color of heavenly blue predominates.
Dark blue is typical for depicting the clothes of cherubs, who are constantly in reverent reflection.
Green color was more “earthly”, meaning life, spring, flowering of nature, youth. This is the color of the Cross of Christ, the Grail (according to legend, carved from a whole emerald). Green is identified with the great Trinity. On this holiday, according to tradition, churches and apartments are usually decorated with bouquets of green twigs.
At the same time, green also had negative meanings - deceit, temptation, devilish temptation (green eyes were attributed to Satan).
Attitude to black was predominantly negative, as the color of evil, sin, the devil and hell, as well as death. In the meanings of black, as among primitive peoples, the aspect of “ritual death”, death for the world, was preserved and even developed. Therefore, black became the color of monasticism.
For Christians, a black raven meant trouble.
But black has not only such a tragic meaning. In icon painting in some scenes it means divine mystery. For example, on a black background, signifying the incomprehensible depth of the Universe, the Cosmos was depicted - an old man in a crown in the icon of the Descent of the Holy Spirit.
Violet
– a mysterious color in Christian art. It is formed by mixing red and blue (cyan). Thus, violet color combines the beginning and end of the light spectrum. It symbolizes intimate knowledge, silence, spirituality. In early Christianity, purple symbolized sadness and affection.
This color is appropriated to the memories of the Cross and Lenten services, where the suffering and Crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of people are remembered.
As a sign of higher spirituality, combined with the idea of the Savior’s feat on the cross, this color is used for the bishop’s mantle, so that the Orthodox bishop, as it were, is fully clothed in the feat of the cross of the Heavenly Bishop, whose image and imitator the bishop is in the Church.
Brown and gray were the flowers of the common people. Their symbolic meaning, especially in the early Middle Ages, was purely negative. They meant poverty, hopelessness, wretchedness, abomination, etc.
Brown is the color of earth, sadness. It symbolizes humility, renunciation of worldly life. Gray color (a mixture of white and black, good and evil) is the color of ash, emptiness.
After the ancient era, during the Middle Ages in Europe, color again regained its position, primarily as a symbol of mystical forces and phenomena, which is especially characteristic of early Christianity.
Irina Bazan
References:B.A. Bazyma "Color and Psyche".HER. Golubinsky "History of the Russian Church".O.V. Vovk "Encyclopedia of signs and symbols".Ya.L. Obukhov “Symbolism of Color” (Internet).A. Kamensky “Colors and their meaning in the Orthodox Church” (Internet: kamensky.ru)Etc.) are used in different colors.
The color scheme of liturgical vestments consists of the following primary colors: white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, black. They all symbolize the spiritual meanings of the saints and sacred events being celebrated. On Orthodox icons, the colors in the depiction of faces, garments, objects, the background itself, or “light”, as it was called in ancient times, also have a deeply symbolic meaning. The same applies to wall paintings and temple decoration. Based on the established traditional colors of modern liturgical vestments, from the evidence of the Holy Scriptures, the works of the Holy Fathers, from surviving examples of ancient painting, it is possible to give general theological interpretations of the symbolism of color.
The most important holidays of the Orthodox Church and sacred events, which are associated with certain colors of robes, can be combined into six main groups.
- A group of holidays and days of remembrance of the Lord Jesus Christ, prophets, apostles and saints. The color of the vestments is gold (yellow), of all shades.
- A group of holidays and days of remembrance of the Blessed Virgin Mary, ethereal forces, virgins and virgins. The color of the vestments is blue and white.
- A group of holidays and days of remembrance of the Cross of the Lord. The color of the vestments is purple or dark red.
- Group of holidays and days of remembrance of martyrs. The color of the vestments is red. On Maundy Thursday it is dark red, although all the decoration of the altar remains black, and there is a white shroud on the altar.
- A group of holidays and days of remembrance of saints, ascetics, holy fools. The color of the vestments is green. The Day of the Holy Trinity, the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, the Day of the Holy Spirit are celebrated, as a rule, in green vestments of all shades.
- During the fasting period, the color of vestments is dark blue, purple, dark green, dark red, black. The latter color is used mainly during Lent. On the first week of this Lent and on weekdays of other weeks, the color of the vestments is black; on Sundays and holidays - dark with gold or colored trim.
Burials are usually performed in white vestments.
In ancient times, the Orthodox Church did not have black liturgical vestments, although the everyday clothes of the clergy (especially monks) were black. In ancient times, in the Greek and Russian Churches, according to the Charter, during Great Lent they dressed in “crimson vestments” - in vestments of a dark red color. In Russia, for the first time, it was officially proposed that the St. Petersburg clergy should dress in black vestments, if possible, in 1730 to participate in the funeral of Peter II. Since then, black vestments have been used for funeral and Lenten services.
Orange has no “place” in the canon of liturgical vestments. Being a combination of red and yellow, it seems to slide in tissues: with a tint towards yellow it is perceived as yellow (gold often gives an orange tint), and with a predominance of red - as red. If we take into account this remark about the color orange, then it is not difficult to notice that in church vestments there is white and all seven primary colors of the spectrum of which it consists, and black as the absence of light, a symbol of non-existence, death, mourning or renunciation of worldly vanity and wealth.
The seven primary colors of the rainbow (spectrum) correspond to the mysterious number seven, placed by God in the orders of heavenly and earthly existence - the six days of the creation of the world and the seventh - the day of rest of the Lord; Trinity and Four Gospels; the seven sacraments of the Church; seven lamps in the heavenly temple, etc. And the presence of three underived and four derived colors in the colors corresponds to the ideas about the uncreated God in the Trinity and the creation created by Him.
“God is love,” revealed to the world especially in the fact that the Son of God, having become incarnate, suffered and shed His Blood for the salvation of the world, and washed away the sins of mankind with His Blood. God is a consuming fire. The Lord reveals himself to Moses in the fire of the burning bush and guides Israel to the promised land with a pillar of fire. This allows us to attribute red, as the color of fiery love and fire, to a symbol primarily associated with the idea of the Hypostasis God the Father.
The Savior's death on the cross was the repose of the Lord Jesus Christ from His works of saving man in earthly human nature. This corresponds to the repose of God from the works of creating the world on the seventh day, after the creation of man. Violet is the seventh color from red, from which the spectral range begins. The purple color inherent in the memory of the Cross and Crucifixion, containing red and blue colors, also denotes a certain special presence of all the Hypostases of the Holy Trinity in the feat of the cross of Christ. And at the same time, the color violet can express the idea that by His death on the Cross Christ conquered death, since combining the two extreme colors of the spectrum together does not leave any place for blackness in the vicious circle of colors thus formed, as a symbol of death.
Purple color is also used for bishop's mantle, so that the Orthodox bishop, as it were, is fully clothed in the feat of the cross of the Heavenly Bishop, whose image and imitator the bishop is in the Church. The award purple skufiyas and kamilavkas of the clergy have similar semantic meanings.
Holidays martyrs the red color of liturgical vestments was adopted as a sign that the blood shed by them for faith in Christ was evidence of their fiery love for the Lord “with all their heart and with all their soul” ( Mk. 12, 30). Thus, the red color in church symbolism is the color of the boundless mutual love of God and man.
Green color of vestments for days of remembrance of ascetics and reverends means that spiritual feat, while killing the sinful principles of the lower human will, does not kill the person himself, but revives him by combining him with the King of Glory (yellow color) and the grace of the Holy Spirit (blue color) to eternal life and renewal of all human nature.
The white color of liturgical vestments is adopted on the holidays of the Nativity of Christ, Epiphany, and Annunciation because, as noted, it signifies the uncreated Divine Light coming into the world and sanctifying God’s creation, transforming it. For this reason, they also serve in white vestments on the feasts of the Transfiguration and Ascension of the Lord.
White color is also adopted for commemorating the dead, because it very clearly expresses the meaning and content of funeral prayers, which ask for repose with the saints for those who have departed from earthly life, in the villages of the righteous, clothed, according to Revelation, in the Kingdom of Heaven in the white vestments of Divine Light.
Taking into account the established Russian Church liturgical practice, the table of colors of liturgical vestments is as follows.
- Average Lord's holidays, weekdays outside of Lent, Saturdays and Sundays - golden (yellow)
- Mother of God holidays blue
- Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary - white or blue
- Exaltation of the Cross(up to and including giving away) and other celebrations in honor of the Cross of the Lord - burgundy or violet
- St. ap. and ev. John the Evangelist - white
- Eve of the Nativity of Christ - white
- Nativity(up to and including delivery) - golden or white
- Circumcision of the Lord , Eve of Epiphany , Epiphany(up to and including delivery) - white
- Presentation of the Lord(up to and including delivery, except Sundays) - blue or white
- Preparatory weeks for Lent - golden (yellow)(in some churches violet)
- Forgiveness Sunday, starting from “Vouchsafe, Lord...” - black(in some churches violet)
- Holy Week - black or dark purple
- Maundy Thursday - violet
- Holy Saturday(starting from the reading of the Gospel at the Liturgy and ending midnight office immediately before Easter Matins) - white.
- Easter(up to and including delivery, except Sundays) - red According to tradition, during Easter matins clergy, if possible, they dress themselves several times in vestments of different colors