In Old Testament times, the high priest, priests and Levites had special vestments made at the direct command of God, given through the great prophet Moses: "Call unto you from the children of Israel your brother Aaron and his sons, that they may become My priests - Aaron and his sons Nadav, Abiud, Elazar and Itamar. Make your brother Aaron holy garments - for majesty and beauty. Let them make a breastplate, an ephod, a rice, a patterned shirt, a turban and a belt... Let it take gold, blue, purple and scarlet yarns and flax for it..." (Ex. 28:1-2). (Ex. 28: 1-2.) These garments, made for the glory and beauty of the divine services, shaped the vestments of the Orthodox clergy.
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The holy garments were intended only for the divine service. It could not be worn and consumed in everyday life. Through the prophet Ezekiel, the Lord commands the priests of the Old Testament, going out of the temple into the outer courtyard of the people, to take off their divine garments and put them in the barriers of the saints, wearing other garments (Ezekiel 44:19). In the Orthodox Church, at the end of the service vestments are also removed and remain in the temple.
In Holy Scripture clothing often has a symbolic meaning and means the spiritual state of its bearer. Thus, for example, in the parable of the wedding feast, which figuratively tells about the kingdom of God, it is said about the inadmissibility of entering it not wearing wedding clothes (Matthew 22:11-14). Or in the Revelation of John says: "Write to the Angel of the Church of Sardinia: ...you have several men in Sardis who have not defiled their robes, and will walk with me in white robes, for they are worthy. He who overcomes shall wear white garments; and I will not blot his name out of the book of life, but confess his name before My Father and before His angels" (Revelation 3:4,5); "And it was given to her to put on the fine linen of the Lamb (the symbol of the people of God - A.Z.); but the linen is the righteousness of the saints" (Revelation 19:8).
The famous Russian theologian priest Paul Florensky says that in general, the clothes of man is mysteriously connected with his spiritual being: "Clothes are part of the body. In everyday life - it is an external extension of the body ... clothing grows into the body. In the order of visual and artistic clothing is a phenomenon of the body, and itself, its lines and surfaces, it shows the structure of the body.
According to Father Paul, the garment does not only cover the body, but it certainly reflects even more than the body, the most important thing in man is his spiritual essence, and therefore has a profound spiritual meaning.
It was not immediately that special vestments of divine service appeared in the Christian Church. Christ made the Last Supper in plain clothes, and the apostles used daily garments for the Eucharist. However, it is known that the Apostle James, the brother of the Lord, the first archpriest of Jerusalem, was dressed as a Jewish priest, and the Apostle John the Theologian also wore a gold bandage on his head as a sign of the high priest. According to the legend, the Theotokos made with her hands an omophorion for Lazarus, who was raised from the dead by Christ (John 11:1-44) and then bishop of Cyprus. Thus, the Apostles began to use some of the divine garments. Subsequently, the daily garments of Jesus and the Apostles began to be treated as sacred and, even leaving their daily use, were preserved in church life. In addition, vestments specially designed for the divine service appeared. And already in the fourth century Blessed Jerome said: "It is not permissible to enter the altar and perform divine services in robes that are common and simply used. The canon of divine service vestments was established in the sixth century.
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