Within the Latin rite, at least the English speaking portion of it, there is a century old (and in my estimation, rather tiresome) debate around the shape of the chasuble. Of course, anyone who has paid attention to articles here or elsewhere will know that the chasuble has had various forms and shapes over its long history, all of which derive originally from the Roman paenula -- a kind of broad over-cloak. This would ultimately be the origins of what we today call a conical chasuble.
Now the conical chasuble is quite voluminous and, frankly, there is a reason they've disappeared. They can certainly be graceful, with all their folds, when worn correctly, but there's a problem: They tend to get very heavy, and heavy or not, they also tend to get in the way of the movements of the priest. That's because this form of the vestment is basically a large, circular piece of fabric with a hole in the centre for the head.
To expose and free up the arms of the priest, the extra fabric has to be pulled away at either the sides or the front. It is this impracticality -- which often created practical problems in the liturgy -- that resulted in this form of the chasuble ultimately being dropped (and, incidentally, it also explains why all of the modern 'revivalist' attempts at restoring the conical chasuble have fallen flat, because for all their archeologistic romance, they simply aren't that practical and often are found to create challenges with the rubrics and ceremonial of the liturgy.)
In the Latin West, it was opted to start cutting away at the sides of the chasuble. Gradually this trimming continued until we end up at the classic shape of Latin chasuble from the last 500 years or so, (what some term the "Roman chasuble" -- a bit of a misnomer since all of these shapes have been found in Rome at one time, but we'll adopt it for the sake of clarity and convenience). The predominant 'milestones' we might identify in the shapes in the West is the full-fledged conical, the truncated gothic form, followed by a more Renaissance era bell shaped chasuble, then Neri/Borromean form and finally the Roman.
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| The trimming of the sides of the chasuble |
All of this is known well enough, but what many do not stop to think about is that a similar process was undergone within the Byzantine East as well.
The Byzantines call the chasuble the "phelonion" but whatever it is called, it s functionally and effectively just another term for a chasuble. In the case of the Byzantines, they opted to approach the trimming of the phelonion/chasuble by instead cutting away at the front rather than at the sides. But the point is, they did also trim away, and this may come as a surprise to some in the Latin west who are engaged in these vestment shape wars and who tend to consider the East somehow liturgically "pristine."
It doesn't take much more than common sense to see that it was simply another variant on the same thing we see in the West: trying to free up the arms and hands of the clergy so that they can move more freely and execute the demands of the sacred liturgy.
As in the West, one can find some variations in the amount that was cut, and one can also find some different styles of phelonion (the most obvious one being the Greek shaped phelonion, which form fits at the shoulders, versus the Russian phelonion, which is higher-backed, sitting much like a Roman style cope does at the neck and shoulders). Here, for example, is an "un-trimmed" Russian phelonion, seen from the front.
If one looks at some of the early iconographic depictions of Eastern Christian saints, one will see how this fuller form of the phelonion/chasuble was worn, and one will note how the fabric is pulled up at the front in order to free up the cleric's arms.
In Russia this fuller shape was preserved longer than elsewhere, as seen in this relatively modern illustration, which also shows the fuller shape quite well:
A real world example can be seen here:
So if that was the full shape, how did this evolve? These next examples, none of which are "ancient" per se, will show how more and more of the front of the phelonion is cut away to free up the priests's arms and it will provide a good template for envisioning how this evolution would have also happened historically.
As in the case of the Latin west, the most significant cutting away begins about 500 years ago, and that is really one of the points I would like to highlight here: in both East and West, the chasuble shape evolved, seeing significant trimming away. This wasn't due to decadence or corruption, it was simply responsive to the practical demands of the liturgy. While the romance for the full shape of the ancient Roman paenula is understandable, there is a reason why this happened not only in the Latin West but also the Byzantine East. (And there's also a reason why the revivals of the ancient form never seems to take hold).
If you'd like to see these two Eastern forms, seen at the two opposite ends of spectrum, here is a good photo for comparison:
As you can see in this side by side comparison. The more ancient form, seen on the left, could easily be mistaken for a "gothic" chasuble in the Latin West -- which is entirely understandable as it effectively is what we'd call a conical chasuble. In its evolved, trimmed back form, seen on the right, you can see how the front was trimmed away and while the priest has tucked his arms beside him for this particular photo, one can easily see how this cutting away has the purpose of freeing up the arms and hands of the priest.
For comparison, here is the same development as seen in the West. Here the front wasn't trimmed back, it was kept full. What was trimmed back instead were the sides, also having the same practical impact of freeing up the priest's arms and hands.
In short, we see the common roots of the chasuble/phelonion in both East and West, and we similar imperatives for the evolutionary development of its shape.
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