omophorion

From Byzantine Greek ὠμοφόριον (ōmophórion), from Ancient Greek ὦμος (ômos, “shoulder”) + φέρω (phérō, “carry”).

omophorion (plural omophorions or omophoria)

1. A band of brocade originally of wool decorated with crosses and is worn on the neck and around the shoulders as the distinguishing vestment of a bishop and the symbol of his spiritual and ecclesiastical authority in the Eastern Christian liturgical tradition, equivalent to the Western archepiscopal pallium.
   • 1972, Robert Silverberg, “Thomas the Proclaimer”, in Sailing to Byzantium, Agberg Ltd., published September 2000, page 232.:

     a little band of marchers displays Greek Orthodox outfits, the rhason and sticharion, the epitrachelion and the epimanikia, the sakkos, the epigonation, the zone, the omophorion; they brandish icons and enkolpia, dikerotikera and dikanikion.

   • 1998, Encyclopaedia Britannica CD 98 Multimedia Edition:

     The bishop wears an omophorion, whose shape and manner of wearing are closer to the original pallium than either the stole or the epitrachelion.

   • 2001, “The Symbolism of Vestments”, in Orthodox America‎, archived from the original on 21 January 2001:

     Although the bishop also wears - an epitrachelion, his distinctive sign of office is the omophorion-a long, broad strip arranged on the shoulders in such a way that one end descends in front and the other behind. The word 'omophorion' means "shoulder covering" and originally referred to a piece of sheepskin worn over the shoulders by the aged and in firm for warmth.

• alb, epigonation, epimanikion, epitrachelion, maniple, mitre, rhason, sakkos, sticharion, zone