Monday, December 9, 2013

Did God Command Bishops to Wear Special Hats?

In a recent article, Pope Francis was quoted as saying he was thinking of doing away with "the hat" and "Besides, you expect me to believe God really cares if I wear a big pointy hat or not? Come on.”  That got me thinking about Orthodox Clergy and the comments I often hear about we dress. I gather the Pope is trying to bridge the gap between the younger "more with-it" generation who might consider the Bishop's Mitre as old fashioned, ritualistic and therefore BAD. But did God say anything about hats?

I've already written my thoughts about clergy vestments in general, so I won't go into that here. You read about clergy vestments of the Old Testament Temple in Exodus 28-29, but I have quoted 2 points here...
"And you shall put it on a blue cord, that it may be on the turban; it shall be on the front of the turban" Exodus 28.37

"You shall put the turban on his head, and put the holy crown on the turban." Exodus 29.6


I guess maybe God DID say something about how the celebrant must dress. Of course, I'm not a follower of Sola Scriptura, but even I can can tell the difference between a baseball cap and a holy crown.


UPDATE! I was going to delete the entire post as I "fell" for the satire. I don't normally fall for this stuff, but I saw this headline in a few locations, and in the growing context of coverage of the Pope's desire to "change things up" I didn't do the proper research. Having said that, I STILL think (which is why I didn't delete the post) there is benefit to reminding visitors/friends/society in general of the wealth of our ancient Holy Tradition.

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