Coptica v. 16 2017

Evolution of Coptic Liturgical Vestments (Part II)

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all understandable, except that the rubrics themselves began first of all by mentioning the investing of the patriarch with the orarion (= epitrachelion ) among other items! Next, one encounters another mysterious vestment, the phakialion [4]. Since it is described here as a vestment on the head and hanging down, this makes it very similar to the morphorin mentioned previously as identified by the rubric itself, which was also on the head hanging down. The two terms are translated with the same Arabic word ,العرضى al-‘arḍī [4], further confirming their common meaning. 26 Thus, phakialion here can be taken as a third synonym for the wide head covering band that will be referred to later in Arabic as a ballīn . The same term appears in the commentary on the Byzantine Divine Liturgy by Patriarch Germanus I of Constantinople (715- 730) as a long band of cloth, which in that case was used as a synonym for the epitrachelion . 27 Finally, there is a reference once more to the epicheri [5]. In the previous instance, this was a vestment on the shoulder hanging down, which I took the liberty of calling a descendant of the classic omophorion . The situation here is somewhat more complicated. While the Coptic text has the epicheri on the head instead of the shoulder, the Arabic has shoulder, and translates epicheri this time by the term ,بلاريه balāryah [5]. This same word was used earlier for the subdeacon’s orarion . It could very well be that balāryah is a corruption of the Coptic ⲡⲓⲱⲣⲁⲣⲓⲟⲛ , taking the masculine definite article ⲡⲓ together with the noun, and changing the letter Rho to Lamda . Although the epitrachelion is typically thought of as resting on the neck, it is not inconceivable to regard it as equally resting on the shoulders. If this is true, it would further confirm that the patriarch did in fact receive an epitrachelion , contrary to Innemée’s earlier suggestions. However, taking instead the Coptic text as the center of interpretation, one would be forced to confront the suggestion of two vestments worn over the head. Here, Innemée suggests that this latter rubric was copied from an earlier source, then immediately presents a theory of development where the epicheri would have gone from being worn on the shoulder to being worn on the head, essentially negating that this later rubric could have come from an earlier source. 28 All the while, regardless of which came first, there would still remain two head coverings, one on top of the other, which is quite unlikely. The remaining possibility therefore is that the earlier rubric is the more accurate, while the latter one is likely a copyist’s error and cannot have 26 Ibid ., 28. 27 Historia Ecclesiastica 18 (CPG 8023) (PG 98:393). Cf. Paul Meyendorff, St Germanus of Constantinople on the Divine Liturgy: The Greek Text with Translation, Introduction, and Commentary , Popular Patristics Series 8 (Crestwood, NY 1984), 66-67. For a complete range of meanings of this term in patristic Greek literature, see G.H.W. Lampe (ed.), A Patristic Greek

Lexicon (Oxford, 1961), 1469-1470. 28 Innemée, Ecclesiastical Dress , 29.