STANDARDS AND EPITAPHS

Standards 

Flags are known also as standards, and are worship objects kept in churches and carried on pilgrimages, processions or funerals. The flag is the successor of the Byzantine battle flag, bearing on it the sign of the cross or iconographic representations, being a symbol of spiritual struggle and also of victory of the good. Initially, the flag was made of expensive fabrics, with the icon embroidered with gold thread and silver.  Currently, the church flag is made of a cloth about one meter long and sixty centimeters wide, or larger, mounted on a wooden support in T-shape, which is topped by a cross. On this canvas holy faces are painted or embroidered: the Savior, the Holy Angels, Great Feasts or the icon of the „feast day”. 


Epitaphs
The Orthodox Holy Epitaph is an icon of dead Jesus Body embroidered on a piece of velvet cloth. Epitaph envisions the Lord´s body - reminding of His funeral, and its raise from the Holy Table, on the Wednesday before Ascension, symbolizes Savior's ascension into heaven. Holy Epitaphs is used once a year, on the Vesper of Good Friday, when it is removed from the Holy Shrine in procession and placed in the middle of the church, usually on a table. On Good Friday Vesper service of Holy Burial, Holy Epitaph is carried in procession around the church, and then placed on the Holy Table, where it remains until the feast of Ascension. There is also another Holy Epitaph used on the feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos. On the evening before the feast a special service takes place: The Lamentation (the Requiem) Service of the Holy Virgin. On this occasion, the Holy Epitaph is placed in the middle of the church, representing the Dormition of the Holy Virgin Mary; it is adorned with flowers, like a tomb.t.

 

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