Liturgical Candles & Lamps
Living flames before the altar, honoring Christ the Light
Liturgical candles and lamps are burned before altars, icons, and relics and during worship, offered as symbols of Christ the Light. The custom was already debated in antiquity, as Jerome's reply to Vigilantius shows. It remains central to Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and high-church Anglican worship, while many Reformed traditions reduced such ceremonial lighting in the interest of simpler worship.
Key passages(3)
Each passage is tagged by what it does with the idea: explains it, applies it in practice, redefines it with a new meaning, or challenges it. Relevance shows how directly the passage is about this idea.
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril · Cyril of Jerusalem
Ps. cxxxix. 12. On Easter Eve the Church was full of lights which were kept burning all night, and the newly-baptized carried torches. Gregory of Nyssa, preaching on the Resurrection (Orat. iv.) descr
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7. As to the question of tapers, however, we do not, as you in vain misrepresent us, light them in the daytime, but by their solace we would cheer the darkness of the night, and watch for the dawn, le
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The Life of Constantine with Orations of Constantine and Eusebius · Eusebius of Caesarea
Chapter LXII.—Constantine’s Appeal to the Bishops, requesting them to confer upon him the Rite of Baptism. “The time is arrived which I have long hoped for, with an earnest desire and prayer that I m
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