Church Tat
Climacus
Shipmate
Our parish recently celebrated 75 years of Russian Orthodoxy in the region and there was a display of historic vestments, liturgical items, news articles, icons... A few photos are at the bottom of this page (sorry, can't see a way to link to the individual photos).
I love looking at historic tat. Does your church website have or do you have a personal photo site that showcases historic church vessels, vestments and such? Or can you describe such things you have come across?
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I love looking at historic tat. Does your church website have or do you have a personal photo site that showcases historic church vessels, vestments and such? Or can you describe such things you have come across?
Comments
Our Place has some absolutely awful Tat, but also one or two decent items, such as a missal stand (for the altar) designed by Sir Ninian Comper, and made of walnut. There are some candlesticks, and an altar cross, believed to have been designed by Comper, but their provenance cannot now be proved IYSWIM.
We have some antique vestments, but none are worthy of note except perhaps for a dark blue chasuble and matching stole. Madam Sacristan refers to this as *the Sarum Blue set*, and they get an outing on one Sunday in Advent, as the chasuble is rather frail now.
Alan
Ship of Fools Admin
We have a cope designed by Ninian Comper which is in a display case. We recently had it restored at great expense. One method of paying towards it was to remove the diamond sequins and sell them and replace them with glass sequins. When we came to do it, it transpired that at some point in the past somebody else had already done it.
Comper himself used to worship here and we have a member of the congregation who is a direct descendant.
Our Place is Edwardian, so the old Mass vestments (mostly in full sets for priest, deacon, and sub-deacon, complete with maniples) are of that era. They are somewhat well-worn, although some repairs were carried out a few years ago on the red set, but these days some much newer vestments are normally used.
One rather nice piece of more modern tat is a small image of St Francis of Assisi, carved from a light-coloured wood by a Polish artist, and commissioned by our then Churchwarden. It is quite realistic IYSWIM, and depicts St Francis as he may have looked shortly before his death - careworn, and elderly, despite being only about 44. Ironically, the said Churchwarden died in 2016, aged only 46, so the image is by way of being a memorial to him, as well.
There is no need at present for any further repairs, as we have the new vestments I mentioned earlier. I doubt if they'll last for any length of time, though we do have two or three green chasubles which can be used turn and turn about during Green Sunday And Weekday Sag!
FatherInCharge has a very fine gold chasuble, and matching cope, which he uses on suitable occasions - they were gifts to him from his previous parish, and are therefore his personal property.
For people's curiousity, stored as well as they can be in the church and no talk of throwing them out but still a concern. Especially when you need to keep a living functioning church going as well. "Fortunately" since the mid-twentieth century our vestment budget has not stretched to such heights and worn out vestments are precisely that.
They sound like a kind of bird.
Precisely my comment to the Church Warden. The last I saw of them , they were hanging up in the unlocked clergy vestry, the PCC having voted against the proposal to get a door, which could be locked, put at the vestry entrance. Some items were in drawers, but not particularly well stored long-term. As I said, I must try to find out what has happened.
Yes, there's a place for holding and even displaying "relics", they can inform us of our past and show how our tradition has developed and evolved. We all like, and can learn from, museums - but we don't live in them.
This is not always a Good Idea, as evidenced by a Place, not far from Our Place, which has gone down the same road, and is now (I'm told) in financial difficulties because of the number of people who have been alienated by the changes, and who have gone elsewhere (or nowhere else).
IOW, it might be prudent to keep hold of good vestments (which represent a fair amount of capital outlay), as the next priest may well wish to restore their use. They may not, of course, in which case selling the items on (or giving them to a poor parish!) is an option.
One unique tat I remember in a congregation I served in South Dakota was the original document of call to its first pastor. It guaranteed grain for the minister's horse.
I think our minister is still permitted to take the use of the glebe (40 acres) in lieu of part of his stipend.
Our tenant is one of the elders and 121 handle all of it, the only evidence of its existence being a small reduction in our net GtG contribution.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2024/nov/29/inside-the-restored-notre-dame-cathedral-in-pictures
I especially like the new altar, font, and tabernacle - all designed by one Guillaume Bardet - which IMHO are beautifully simple, yet fit perfectly into their Gothic setting.
You may note the absence of pews, but I think chairs are to be used instead.
Delighted the organ wasn't destroyed in the fire. Planning a trip in 2025.
FWIW, I think the baroque stuff looks a good deal better than it did before the fire, having been thoroughly cleaned and repaired, but they did perhaps miss an opportunity to simplicate, and add more lightness.
The Choir Organ was badly damaged, and is being replaced by a more suitable instrument.
These could have been done in a way that respected the past yet also acknowledged the present and future.
Equally, I do know of Orthodox places of worship that were formally buildings belonging to other traditions where respect is paid to that in the adaptation in some way. There are however egregious examples where no consideration or acknowledgement has been given.
Both look somewhat like a pudding basin at the foot. In St Hedwig's this is supposed to remind us of a baptismal font. Notre Dame has a four sided mensa (table top) whereas St Hedwig's is round.
In the 'reform of the reform' it seems now that baptismal fonts are no longer placed as near to the altar as possible. The baptismal font in the restored ND is at the entrance to the church.
In fairness fewer than ten could stand around the original font and baptismal parties here run to dozens
Our font normally sits just inside the entrance, in the middle of the aisle. On days when we have a baptism, we move it up to the front so everyone can see, rather than having to twist their necks. Our current font is a wooden table with embedded bowl, so this is possible. The old font, which sits just inside the exterior doors to the building, is a heavy stone thing which would not be fun to move around on a regular basis.
If you want to know what I meant, well, only a little bit of American self-deprecating humor.
There's not much room around it, though the aisle is empty of pews, and at one time we put out a number of chairs - facing the font - but this meant rather a lot of work. The practice now is, I think, to seat the baptismal party in the nave pews for the first part of the service, moving as many as possible to the font for the baptism proper.
A bit untidy, but it works for the larger baptismal parties which seem to have become the norm in recent years (a former churchwarden tartly remarked that such parties took the place of the wedding that hadn't happened).
AIUI, it's usual practice in Lutheran churches for the font to be at the front of the church, so to speak, and given a prominent position close to the altar and the lectern - Word and Sacraments being equally important.
Increasingly, though, I'm seeing a third possibility in table-centered arrangements: the font on the level of the nave at the front of the center aisle or in the middle of the center aisle/nave (with seats arranged in a way to maintain some space around the font). This is the arrangement at our place. One walks by the font to receive Communion, and some will dip fingers in it as they walk by. (A few even make the sign of the cross when they do.)
The recommendation in my denomination is that the font be where it can easily be seen by the congregation, that it not be covered and that it have water in it during all services. Our liturgical resources also recommend that appropriate parts of the service—typically this is the Confession and Pardon—be led from the font, and that water be poured in the font, either at the beginning of the service or at another appropriate time. Typically I see it done as part of the Pardon.
Which calls to mind the faux-pas recalled by a clerical friend who in a Malapropism pronounced during a liturgical reading, 'who was baptised by Jordan in the John.'
Whether self-deprecating or derogatory, 500 years is recent ... 😉
There's still plenty of medieval stonework around of course.
But to all intents and purposes most religious 'tat' is of relatively recent origin.
But yes, most religious paraphernalia in British churches would be of comparatively recent vintage even if many of the buildings themselves go back a long, long way.
In the cities and former industrial areas such as the old mining and textile towns, or ports and former fishing communities then most church buildings (or former church buildings) tend to post-date the Industrial Revolution.
Not a great deal of Jacobean decoration has survived for obvious reasons given the turmoil of the mid-1600s but there are plenty of funerary monuments to local worthies from the 16th to 20th centuries. It's surprising what you can find of local, regional or national interest in plenty of these places. Not that I'd include it in the 'tat' category.
I'd tend to reserve that term for second-generation Oxford Movement paraphernalia and later within Anglicanism and popular RC devotional objects which still feel quite 'alien' despite 200 years of 'Emancipation.'
Communion plate is not infrequently older - one parish of my acquaintance had a flagon(!) from the reign of Queen Anne which they were trying to sell because it was (a) useless for practical purposes and (b) costing money to store securely and insure.
Agreed. A good deal of the tat to which you refer was railed against by Blessed Percy Dearmer, who hated the expensive, but badly made and designed, liturgical accessories and vestments which infest so many churches of that period. We have a fair amount in Our Place, and I would love to be given the chance to chuck it into a skip, or onto a bonfire...
Yes, that's generally how we use the term here although it would refer also to things like tacky jewellery.
It certainly wouldn't be applied to a Queen Anne vintage flagon or a medieval pyxe or reliquary.
It may apply to plaster statuary and such like.
I mean them no disrespect but our local RC parish has a 1960s building in faux-Italianate style replete with plastic angels. It is delightfully hideous.