What are the paraments (Sp?) for? I know they decorate the alter and chancel and change color with the different events in the church. Do they have any other purpose? Any significant meaning?
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What are for...
- Thread starter redphantom
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Supisuomalainen sisupussi
The paraments, indeed, do "change color" i.e. follow the liturgical colors of the church year, which begins with the first Advent, the fourth Sunday before December 25 i.e. Christmas.
WHITE symbolises purity, innocence and holines; God, Jesus, angels, and All Saints, and is used on the most important Christian seasons, first and foremost on Christmas and Easter.
RED is the color of blood, fire, passion; the Holy Spirit and martyrs, and is used on Pentecost, All Saints', Apostles and martyrs.
GREEN is the color of hope and eternal life, growth, and is used after Epiphany to Lent and *almost all Sundays* after Pentecost. Hence you could say it's the most common liturgical color we see, followed by white.
VIOLET (or DARK BLUE) symbols mourning, penitence, and is used on the seasons of Advent (2nd, 3th and 4th) and Lent and the Holy Week. In a way, this royal color (blue was the most expensive tint, hence "royal blue") signals us to calm down, be quiet, to contemplate, if that makes sense.
BLACK is the color of death and therefore the liturgical color on the day our Lord Jesus Christ gave his life for us so that anyone and everyone who believes in Him will not perish but shall have eternal life, i.e. Good Friday and Holy Saturday.
Other than following the colors of the liturgical year, the paraments are "practical" clothes, if you will, used in the service, most usually the altar cloth and chalice cloths. Often they do have Christian symbols embroidered in them, but other than that, the paraments, their choice of patterns, fabrics, and indeed their very use or non-use reflects the congregation's and the specific church's culture and history, rather than a pre-set standard of the One, Holy, Apostolic and Catholic Church. In other words, if a congregation has and uses them, the liturgical colors they follow are universal, but everything else is down to the local culture, custom, history, if that makes sense. For instance, over here in Finland, we do use altar and chalice cloths, but not those "banner-like" things hanging from and/or around the altar (hence, as you see, I don't even have a word for them!
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If I may...
The paraments used in the church serve basically the same function as the vestments worn by the clergy. The vestments are meant to "cover up" the man so that the focus is not on the individual minister but is directed toward Christ. Altar, lecturn, and pulpit paraments serve a similar purpose in that they, in a sense, "cover up" the worldly aspect of the furniture and indicate that these things are set aside for God's holy use, as places where His means of grace of word and sacrament are offered.
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Supisuomalainen sisupussi
I'm curious. How did those "banners" and "standards" make it to the North American Lutheran churches, do you know? We don't have them over here and never have. I'm thinking about what I learned about the "Star Spangled Spanner" and the reasons why the American Lutheran churches began to adopt the US national flag next to the altar (to show "patriotism", for instance, vs. a German-speaking Lutheran churches at a time when Germans were the "enemy" of the US), and I wonder if there's somewhat similar reasons.
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I'm not sure what you mean by "banners" and "standards". Paraments are the colored cloths that cover the chancel furniture.
As for the American flag in the church, that has its roots during WWI (I believe) when many of the churches here were still very ethnically based. There were German churches, Swedish churches, Slovak churches, Irish, Italian, Polish, etc. The flag in the church was a way to show that the members of the church were loyal to the country. As for today, the national flag has no business in the chancel. many churches still display the American flag in the nave (including this one) mainly out of tradition. I don't allow the flag in the chancel.
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Luther073082
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On that note it's interesting that my Aunt and Uncle's LCMS church had another LCMS church that is in the same town same town split from it because of a disagreement about if they where gonna do worship in German or English.
Of course by now they both do their services in English.
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In the town where my first Call was, there were two ELCA churches, a block apart, that had split decades ago for the very same reason. There was some talk of merging the two in recent years due to low attendance and financial issues. I don't think they ever did, though.
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Luther073082
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It's been my experience that getting two churches even of the same denomination and faith confession to merge is not easy. I've heard of a lot of churches that have talked about it but never done it. I can't think of any instances that I've heard of where two churches successfully did so.
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