Protestant Usage
As a result of the Reformation the use of ceremonial lights was either greatly modified, or totally abolished in the Protestant Churches. In the Reformed (Calvinistic) Churches altar lights were, with the rest, done away with entirely as popish and superstitious. In the Lutheran Churches they were retained, and in Evangelical Germany have even survived most of the other medieval rites and ceremonies (e.g. the use of vestments) which were not abolished at the Reformation itself. The custom of placing lighted candles round the bodies of the dead is still practised by some Protestants.
Read more about this topic: Ceremonial Use Of Lights
Famous quotes containing the words protestant and/or usage:
“blow as he would, though it made a great noise,
The flute would play only ‘The Protestant Boys’.”
—Unknown. The Old Orange Flute (l. 23–24)
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)