Girdle Protocol

What side of one’s body should the two tassels/ends of a girdle hang? By what authority? For what rationale?

REPLIES

Roy Simons - 7/11/2008

The girdle needs to avoid the thurible. In most cases this will mean the tassel will be on the left.

Roy Simons

St. Thomas, Brentwood

Q.B. - 8/11/2008

The tassels should be on the LEFT side . this is the side that your sword hangs and the girdle was the means to attach your sword to your body.
 

Q.B.

Gareth - 13/11/08

Fair enough, I can understand the practical reasons for asking this question. But “by what authority?” I was not aware that you really needed to seek higher authority for which side your girdle hangs!!

Gareth, Norwich

R. A. Erikson - 15/11/08

Thank you to those who have sought to answer my question pertaining to the way one wears a girdle.

My question in relation to the authority from whence the protocol has come is to help ascertain a more complete answer; often the ceremonial life of the church reflects the church’s theological thinking. For instance, should the ‘authority’ be from the Parson’s Handbook, the protocol may have been from the English Church-inclined ‘Alcuin Club’ rather than the Anglo-Catholic ‘Society of Saints Peter and Paul’. An obvious example of ‘authority’ and the resulting impact on the ceremonial of the [Roman] Church is the Second Vatican Council (1962-5).

Ceremony and vestments are an outward display of an inner belief or profession of that belief. To know a more complete answer is to understand the rationale behind the ceremony, and to know why one does something helps to understand and so believe in what one does. To have an understanding of why can deepen one’s belief and make the mysteries of God be made manifest in the ceremony of the church.

R.A.Eriksen

Cathedral of the Holy Trinity

Diocese of Auckland

Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia