COLOURS, in the Latin and Greek churches, are used to distinguish several mysteries and feasts, celebrated therein.
Five colours only are regularly admitted into the Latin church; these are white, green, red, violet, and black: the white is for the mysteries of our Saviour, the feasts of the virgin, those of the angels, saints, and confessors; the red is for the mysteries and solemnities of the holy sacrament, the feasts of the apostles and martyrs; the green for the time between pentecost and advent, and from epiphany to septuagesima; the violet in advent and Christmas, in vigils, rogations, &c. and in votive masses in time of war; lastly, the black is for the dead, and the ceremonies thereto belonging.
In the Greek church, the use of colours is almost abolished, as well as among us: red was, in the Greek church, the colour for Christmas, and the dead, as black among us.