Table of contents:
Video: Church utensils in the Orthodox Church
2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11
Christian cult has been around for two thousand years. During this time, his ritual practice evolved into a system of extremely complex ceremonies. Of course, for the full implementation of the latter, a material base is needed: the vestments of the clergy, the temple premises, church utensils and other elements, without which no service and no sacrament can take place. This article will address the issue of utensils that are used in the Russian Orthodox Church.
Temple church utensils
There are not so many sacred objects that are used in the temple space. First of all, it is a chandelier - a church chandelier. In large churches, several chandeliers are hung.
Unlike simple lighting items, chandeliers play a ritual role - they are included at certain moments of worship to mark especially significant and solemn places of the ceremony. Previously they usedoil lamps or candles. Today, almost all temples use electric lighting.
The second object of general church use is candlesticks or, as they are also called, shandals. They are something like a dish dotted with small stands for thin church candles. An oil lamp is placed in the middle of the shandal, in which the fire is constantly maintained. Its meaning is directly related to the purpose of the shandals - they are placed around the perimeter of the temple near the icons, as well as near the altar, so that people who come to pray can put a sacrificial candle in front of the images. To be able to light it, you need a constantly burning lamp.
Altar items
Church utensils of the altar are more diverse, since the deacon, priestly and bishop's ceremonial includes a huge variety of all sorts of "gadgets". The most famous of them is, of course, the censer. This is such a metal bowl, suspended on chains. This device is used for incense, that is, fumigating the temple with incense, a traditional resinous Middle Eastern incense.
But the following church utensils are of the greatest importance in Orthodoxy: chalice, diskos, spear, liar, star and covers. All together they are called the Eucharistic set, as they serve to perform the most important sacrament of the Christian church - the Eucharist. The chalice is a metal bowl that looks like a large goblet. Eucharistic wine is poured into it. Diskos is a dish on a stand, intended forof bread. A spear is a kind of knife with which this bread is ritually cut. The liar, that is, the spoon, serves as the Eucharistic gifts of the faithful for communion. The diskos is covered with a star on top, in order to then put a cover on it - a small fabric cover. The chalice is also covered with the same cover.
There are many other, less important items of church worship: vessels for wine, oil, bread, altar crosses, tabernacles, etc. But we will not dwell on these attributes here.
Production of utensils
The presence of a huge number of Orthodox churches in Russia requires mass production of church utensils. There are quite a few factories and workshops that offer their goods to choose from, but the official and main enterprise among them is Sofrino, whose church utensils are products directly from the Moscow Patriarchate. This is a large plant serving the whole of Russia and some CIS countries. It is located in the suburbs in the settlement of the same name.
There are internal orders for the clergy to forbid or restrict the purchase of essential cult items anywhere other than Sofrino. At the same time, church utensils have a huge cost and often do not differ in quality, which the clergy often complain about.
Alternative factories produce products of an order of magnitude better quality, both in terms of internal characteristics and visual characteristics. They are located in various cities and regions. But the main place of concentration of enterprises, inwhich produce church utensils - Moscow.
Conclusion
The complete list of church utensils includes several dozen items. Among them there are rather peculiar ones, for example, ripids - round metal images of seraphim on a long handle. Once they were made of feathers to drive away flies, but today they are used without much sense for the pomp and solemnity of bishops' services.
Recommended:
What is the name of the church chant? Features of Orthodox and Negro Church Culture
When entering an Orthodox church, everyone discovers a new world of liturgical art. This is the architecture of the temple, and the art of icon painting, poetry and, finally, chanting. What is the name of the church chant? Let's take a closer look
Russian Orthodox Church: Irkutsk, Kazan Church
The Mother of God-Irkutsk Church is evidence of the talent of the Trans-Ural masters who created a real work of art. Built in the Russian-Byzantine style, the temple adorns Irkutsk. The Kazan Church, like other places of worship in the post-Soviet space, has experienced many misfortunes, but has been revived
Old Believer Church in Moscow. Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church
Orthodoxy, like any other religion, has its bright and black pages. The Old Believers, which appeared as a result of a split in the church, outlawed, subjected to terrible persecution, are more familiar with the dark side. Recently, revived and legalized, it is equalized in rights with other religious movements. Old Believers have their own churches in almost all cities of Russia. An example is the Rogozhskaya Old Believer Church in Moscow and the Temple of the Ligovskaya Community in St. Petersburg
St. Elias Church - the first Orthodox church of Kievan Rus
Stolny grad Kyiv cannot but admire with its historical shrines and architectural monuments, some of them are more than 1000 years old. One of these shrines is St. Elias Church, built in honor of the prophet Elijah and subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate
Autocephalous Church is Autocephalous Orthodox Church
In this article we will analyze the question: “What is the autocephalous church, what is its difference from the usual one?” We will also consider recognized and unrecognized churches, as well as those that are part of autocephalous and are called autonomous
