Insurance for Vestments, Paraments, Relics, Chalices, Patens and Ecclesiastical Furniture

[The Liturgist]

Hey there,

I was thinking about the high cost of good vestments and how according to sacred tradition these have to be burned if, for example, the chalice is spilled on them, and it occurred to me, ecclesiastical service items like the chalice and diskos or paten, relics, icons, paraments, and vestments in the sacristy, can be exceedingly valuable.

Do any of you have insurance policies specifically for these? I am particularly interested in the case of Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran mission parishes which use a building owned by another church or entity. Perhaps Renters Insurance would cover it if they pay rent, but if the use is free, could these items still be insured? And what insurance companies would write a policy for what we might classify as ecclesiastical chattel? I am hoping @GreekOrthodox , @prodromos , @Shane R or @MarkRohfrietsch might know or know someone who knows.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

I have no idea. You and I were discussing the glass top for our altar and one thing I noticed is that the glass protects the paraments not only from anything being spilled from the communion elements, but we also have a lot of stuff on the altar itself. This is a stock photo of an Orthodox altar. So the glass can catch oil, wax, and keeps it from being damaged from all of the stuff on the altar itself. I'm not sure what material ours are made from but is a satiny cloth with lots of embroidery. Its a lot easier to clean the glass than try to mess with the paraments themselves.

 

[The Liturgist]

I have no idea. You and I were discussing the glass top for our altar and one thing I noticed is that the glass protects the paraments not only from anything being spilled from the communion elements, but we also have a lot of stuff on the altar itself. This is a stock photo of an Orthodox altar. So the glass can catch oil, wax, and keeps it from being damaged from all of the stuff on the altar itself. I'm not sure what material ours are made from but is a satiny cloth with lots of embroidery. Its a lot easier to clean the glass than try to mess with the paraments themselves.

Indeed, but the glass doesn’t protect against theft, fire damage, etc. I just want general insurance for the ecclesiastical items I am entrusted with.

That is a beautiful altar by the way. I love your tabernacle, and your lights. I have never seen an Orthodox altar with two candles and two lamps before; St. Anthony’s in Florence uses three, along with one Coptic church, and most parishes I go to use the seven-lamp candelabra. What is the translation of the Greek inscription on the beautiful holy table?

 

[Shane R]

I think valuable property is probably the route to pursue for insurance purposes. When I moved the movers did not pack my brass wares carefully and my thurible was broken. I submitted a claim but the reviewer couldn't figure out what it was, what it was supposed to do, or why it wouldn't work (despite my written description of the defect). They declined to compensate me for it.

 

[The Liturgist]

I think valuable property is probably the route to pursue for insurance purposes. When I moved the movers did not pack my brass wares carefully and my thurible was broken. I submitted a claim but the reviewer couldn't figure out what it was, what it was supposed to do, or why it wouldn't work (despite my written description of the defect). They declined to compensate me for it.

I thought most thuribles were fairly inexpensive?

 

[Shane R]

I thought most thuribles were fairly inexpensive?

$90-150. But the moving company was supposed to pay for any damages. It was the principle of the thing and that they played stupid about it being broken that irritated me.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

Indeed, but the glass doesn’t protect against theft, fire damage, etc. I just want general insurance for the ecclesiastical items I am entrusted with.

That is a beautiful altar by the way. I love your tabernacle, and your lights. I have never seen an Orthodox altar with two candles and two lamps before; St. Anthony’s in Florence uses three, along with one Coptic church, and most parishes I go to use the seven-lamp candelabra. What is the translation of the Greek inscription on the beautiful holy table?

Γεύσασθε καί ίδετε, ότι χρηστός ο Κύριος!
Taste and see, that Christ is the Lord. (from the Presanctified Liturgy)

That was just a stock photo I found. This is our altar outside of services. In the second picture (from Holy Week a couple years ago), there is a small brass box between the left candle and the Tabernacle. Not sure what it is to be honest. Since we have a deacon, we have two books of the Gospel, one in Greek, the other in English. So the altar gets fairly crowded.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

Looking at that stock photo, I think it is from Holy Saturday as I think there is a bowl of basil leaves on the altar.

 

[The Liturgist]

Looking at that stock photo, I think it is from Holy Saturday as I think there is a bowl of basil leaves on the altar.

Just out of curiosity, why are they on the altar on Holy Saturday, and is that a Greek tradition? Because Ive been to a Russian Orthodox church on Holy Saturday and I don’t recall seeing that, but I might not have noticed.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

Just out of curiosity, why are they on the altar on Holy Saturday, and is that a Greek tradition? Because Ive been to a Russian Orthodox church on Holy Saturday and I don’t recall seeing that, but I might not have noticed.

The Basil leaves are thrown around the church during the morning vesperal liturgy of St. Basil. Yeah, the morning vesperal liturgy

 

[The Liturgist]

The Basil leaves are thrown around the church during the morning vesperal liturgy of St. Basil. Yeah, the morning vesperal liturgy

Yeah I know, I’ve been to it many times. The Russian Orthodox tradition, which I adore, is to change out the black paraments for white paraments at the end of Vespers and the start of the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil proper, and the clergy also change vestments. Its actually one of my favorite services because of the 14 Old Testament prophecies, which historically were read while baptisms were being performed. In this respect, it closely resembles the Paschal Vigils Mass from the Tridentine Rite, which despite being a Vigil, was served in the morning, and had twelve Old Testament prophecies, which largely overlapped with the Byzantine ones, in that all were Christological and related to the Crucifixion and Resurrection (then Pope Pius XII decided to ruin it by getting rid of 8 of the Old Testament Prophecies, moving the Vigils Mass to Holy Saturday evening, changing the text of the mass of the Presanctified so it looked nothing like the Presanctified Liturgy of St. Gregory, and changing the liturgical color on Good Friday from black to red, not a shade of dark red like crimson or burgundy, which was traditional in the Byzantine Rite before the Russians introduced black and purple vestments, but bright, arterial blood red, which has a meaning similar to Green in the Roman Rite, meaning New Life). That, and also the use of Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence from the Divine Liturgy of St. James*, make Holy Saturday along with Palm Sunday, Pentecost, Transfiguration, the Dormition, Forgiveness Sunday, Trthe Sunday of Orthodoxy, and the Elevation of the Cross among my favorite liturgies.

I just don’t recall the throwing of basil leaves.

*I beiieve the use of this hymn indicates that the Divine Liturgy of St. James was used in a vesperal form on Holy Saturday, and I would like to see the Anaphora of it used instead of the Anaphora of St. Basil. Because most of the prayers are silent and the peculiarities of the Liturgy of St. James either involve the Liturgy of the Catechumens and the use of Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent instead of the Cherubic Hymn, or, in some recensions of the liturgikon, weird rubrics that are either obsolete or spurious about celebrating it in front of the iconostasis, versus populum, with a bishop and 12 priests, and these are not consistently followed (there are videos online of Russian Orthodox bishops celebrating it behind the iconostasis with a priest and a deacon, ad orientem, in a normal looking way), if done right, most parishioners would not notice that the Anaphora was that of St. James rather than St. Basil, and the Anaphora would be better aligned with the hymnody.

The only downsides I can think of to such a change would be twofold: firstly, inevitable, vociferous and unwarranted complaints from armchair typikon purists, who object to the idea of restoring disused aspects of the Orthodox liturgy on the basis that the Divine Liturgy of St. James is actually heretical and the work of Islamic Atheist Soviet Freemasons, while attending an Orthodox parish that uses the Revised Julian Calendar and the Violakis Typikon, and secondly, of infinitely greater importance than their petty bickering, an unfortunate and accidental misalignment of botanical nomenclature.