Purple, Or No Purple?
WearyPilgrim
Shipmate Posts: 6
Today I saw a photo of Abp. Welby seated at a meeting, wearing the typical black clerical vest that most priests wear. I was surprised he wasn't in episcopal purple --- which raises a question from this non-Anglican: when are bishops required to wear purple? Is it a requirement in certain circumstances, or merely a tradition?
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As it happens I only ever wear a tonsure shirt when hospital visiting, which I am very rarely called to do in my current role, or when I am wearing my cassalb as the cut-away collar looks silly opening on to a naked suprasternal notch.
And I am very very not ever going to need to wear purple so I won't be put to the test on practising what I preach.
Bishop Sherrill who was Presiding Bishop of PECUSA 1946-58 worn ordinary black clericals without either pectoral cross or ring, and that was not uncommon for the low church bishops over here.
Could this next detail interest anyone apart from myself ? During the closure of churches I have watched on three occasions Pontifical Mass from Salzburg cathedral and noticed that the archbishop wore a red zucchetto/skullcap. I checked to see if he had been recently made a cardinal but could find nothing about this.Last Thursday was the patronal feast of Salzburg,a public holiday, and there were three bishops at the Mass,two wearing the red zucchetto.
It turns out that the Archbishop of Salzburg and a number of other highranking prelates in the former Holy Roman Empire have the title of LEGATUS NATUS, ex-officio representatives of the Holy See and entitled to wear cardinal red.
Before the Reformation the Archbishop of Canterbury was also a Legatus Natus.
I find it interesting.
A couple of years ago, an acquaintance of mine and had to restrain our retired bishop from taking off his purple shirt and clerical collar (it was a very hot day, no shade, and he was indeed wearing appropriate clothing below the shirt). He was at the local pride parade as a representative of our diocesan, and the only way anyone was going to notice that the church was there officially was if he was in purple. I don't suppose that many of the spectators actually realized what he was being -- just admiring the lovely purple shirt, I suppose -- but we thought (and he agreed when we pointed it out) that there was a point to the purple.
SOmetimes uniforms can matter.
I do not believe that he ever did, but I wonder if other shipmates might have spotted him in black.
I wonder if those prelates in the HRE were the former Electors of Mainz, Cologne and Trier; that would have some logic to it, as would the ABC, the Abp of Rheims, and so forth (recognising the limited role of logic in such matters).
Legatus natus was often a title given to the Primate of a particular country and seems more or less only to have been conserved in Central Europe. Prague(Primas Bohemiae),Gniezno(Primas Poloniae),Esztergom(Primas Hungariae) Cologne (Primas Rhenaniae ?) and Salzburg (Primas Germaniae). Like the pallium the bishop would only wear the cardinal red within his area of jurisdiction,but the Archbishop of Salzburg as Primas Germaniae can wear cardinal red anywhere .
(Salzburg was an independent ecclesiastical state and only became part of Austria in the carve up of German states following Napoleonic times)
I must stress that the overwhelming majority of Catholics, even daily Massgoers ,would neither know nor care about this. It is something which I only learned last week.