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; namely, white, green, red, violet, and black. The white represents the mysteries of our Saviour, the feast of the Virgin, those of the angels, saints, and confessors; the red, the mysteries and solemnities of the holy sacrament, the feasts of the apostles and martyrs; the green, the time between pentecost and advent, and from epiphany to septuagesima; the violet denotes advent and Christmas, vigils, rogations, and 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.