Green in Orthodox symbolism and the mantles of the patriarch and bishops

Green holds a high place in Orthodox symbolism and is associated with the Trinity: it is the union of yellow (gold), linked with Jesus, and blue, signifying the Holy Spirit. Traditionally the green mantle belongs to the Patriarch alone, and it is not a liturgical vestment but a ceremonial one. The rest of the clergy put on green during special services dedicated to the Holy Trinity. It is written that green is also regarded as the colour of the harmony of Divine being and of eternal repose.

Metropolitan Ambrose, in his "History of the Russian Hierarchy", states that on the great feasts the Patriarch of Moscow wore a green velvet mantle with gold and silver streams, with an image of the Annunciation on the tablets; on other days he wore mantles of "watered silk and various other kinds", with springs and cherubim or crosses on the tablets. By his account, archbishops had green pomaty (that is, the tablets sewn on at the foot of the mantle). From the inventory of the sacristy of the Cathedral of St Sophia in Novgorod it follows that Archbishop John of Novgorod, in the 12th century, had a "cornflower-blue mantle, silken, in the manner of embossed velvet, with springs. On it are velvet tablets trimmed with a narrow gold braid. At the top of the tablets are two crosses of gold-and-silver brocade trimmed with gold cord; the shoulders, skirts and hem are lined with green taffeta."

But the most interesting thing I can report about episcopal mantles is a mention in the Chronicler of the Rostov bishops of the mantle of Archbishop Jacob, which bore on its tablets an icon of the All-Merciful Saviour and Pope Leo of Rome. When Jacob was removed from his see in 1388, he laid the mantle on the water, stood upon it and sailed away. Do not ask how; simply note that Kirill's mantle, too, has tablets