When beginning to live the Liturgical life, you'll begin to notice new things each year, as if we're adding a new layer of rich soil in the garden of our hearts. Maybe a certain part of the feast day hymn jumped out at you this year. Or maybe you noticed something new in the festal icon. Or you heard a line in one of the prayers that you could have sworn you never heard before. Each major feast day, I try to dive a little deeper, and prepare myself for another sweet revelation to renew my heart and mind.

I remember several year ago as we were preparing for this feast day, Ascension, I asked my husband what the Liturgical colors were for the day, to which he said "white or bright!" After 10 years of being Orthodox, it finally occurred to me that each feast had a different color associated, so I wanted to be clued into that. So as we were getting ready, I decided to dress us in all white that year, and now, every year since, to match the vestments and liturgical clothes for the feast.

This connection, although as far as I knew wasn't done by anyone I knew, was a sweet way to help my children recognize the shift in the liturgical year. It was a small act of piety, and a sacrifice even, to show our love and devotion to Christ.

How are the liturgical colors determined?

This is quite a bit beyond my expertise, but there is an amazing source for this. The book The Garments of Salvation - Orthodox Christian Liturgical Vesture (SVS Press) is THE book for this question if you’d like to dive deeper. You can also listen to an interview about Liturgical colors with Kh Krista West on the podcast “Here and Now” on Ancient Faith.

According to Kh Krista West, the rubrics for which color to use on what day initially provided only “two distinct categories”: bright and dark (Garments of Salvation, SVS Press, 2013, p. 169). All that to say, it's not as if these colors are expressed the same way throughout the world.

There are no universal or fixed practices for each feast only general guidelines in the rubrics - bright or dark. However, there are specific colors that are associated with various feast days. These may vary based on where you live, so be sure to check.

So here's a general guide for you:

🤍Gold or white for feast days of the Lord

💙Blue for feast days of the Theotokos

❤️Red or gold for feast days of the martyrs

💚Green or gold for Palm Sunday, Pentecost

❤️💚 Red or Green for the Elevation of the Holy Cross and the Veneration of the Holy Cross

💜Purple for Lenten services

🖤 Black for Holy Friday

So For the feast of Ascension, it is a feast of our Lord, so the color rubrics for the day are bright/white, so we also wear White! So now my kids will ask me "Mommy, what color do we wear for this feast?!" Which just makes me smile because it was only a few years ago that was me asking! I love following the rhythms set before us in the Church and adding a new rich layer!

Blessed feast of Ascension!