Black, Violet or White: Choosing Funeral and Requiem Vestments

Roman practice permits violet, white or black at a funeral, and black was never abolished. What each tradition publishes, what a family can reasonably ask for, and what to own if you buy one set.

By The Clergy Couture Editorial Desk

Updated October 13, 2026 10 min read

A black chasuble with a silver orphrey folded beside a white chasuble with a gold orphrey on a sacristy counter

Whether you use black or white vestments for a funeral is, in the Roman rite, a genuinely open choice: violet, white and black are all permitted, and black was never abolished. The 1970 Missal kept it. What changed after the Council was the habit, not the rule, and in the English-speaking world the habit moved decisively towards white. Outside the Roman rite it is looser still — the Episcopal Church has no binding rubric on colour, and the United Methodist Book of Worship recommends white outright. Here is what each body publishes, and what to buy if you can buy only one set.

Black or white vestments for a funeral: the answer by tradition

Tradition	What the published guidance permits	Most common in practice	Black?
Roman Catholic (US)	Violet, white or black, explicitly, at GIRM 346	White in most parishes; violet in many	Permitted. Normal on All Souls’ and at requiems
Roman Catholic (elsewhere)	Violet is the base provision; each conference’s Missal carries its own adaptation	Varies by country; black remains ordinary in parts of southern Europe	Permitted, wording differs by conference
Church of England	No colour is legally binding; Common Worship treats it as custom	Purple or white	Used, mainly in Anglo-Catholic parishes
The Episcopal Church	No authorised rubric on colour exists	White, on the burial rite’s Easter reasoning	Kept for requiems and All Souls’ in Anglo-Catholic use
ELCA	Vestments and paraments are “in the color of the day”; no funeral colour is prescribed	White	Rare
LCMS	Published colour guidance names black only for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and is silent on funerals	White	Rare
United Methodist	“White is recommended at services of death and resurrection”	White	Effectively not used

If you are working out the whole year rather than this one question, the comparative chart of colours by season and tradition sets the schemes side by side.

The three Roman options, and why parishes choose differently

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal handles the question in two sentences. At 346 it gives the seasonal provision — “Violet or purple is used in Advent and Lent. It may also be worn in Offices and Masses for the Dead” — and then the adaptation for the United States: “Besides the color violet, the colors white or black may be used at funeral services and at other Offices and Masses for the Dead in the Dioceses of the United States of America.”

Three colours, no preference stated. Note the wording of that adaptation, though: it is written for the dioceses of the United States, and conferences elsewhere have their own text. Violet is the constant across all of them.

Violet

The default of the universal text, and the option that needs no separate purchase, because every parish already owns violet for Lent. It reads as prayer for the dead rather than as either mourning or celebration — the middle position, and the least contentious.

White

The dominant choice in the United States, Ireland and much of the English-speaking world since the 1970s. The reasoning is the resurrection: a Christian funeral proclaims Easter, and white is the Easter colour. It also suits a Mass at which most of those present are not regular churchgoers, and it is the usual choice at the funeral of a baptised child.

The objection to it, made seriously and not only by traditionalists, is that a funeral in which nothing looks like grief slides towards canonising the deceased, when the Church’s prayer at a requiem is for the dead.

Black

Never abolished, never discouraged in the text, and increasingly visible again — particularly at Masses offered for the repose of a soul, at month’s mind and anniversary Masses, and on All Souls’. Parishes that own black often use it for those and white for the funeral itself, which is a coherent position: the funeral is a public liturgy attended by the bereaved, the anniversary Mass is the Church praying for the dead.

One practical note. Black is the hardest liturgical colour to buy well: a cheap black polyester reads as dark grey under warm lighting and as brown beside a black cassock. If you are commissioning funeral and memorial vestments, look at the cloth under your own chancel lights first.

Anglican practice, which has no rule to break

There is no authorised rubric on liturgical colour in the Episcopal Church, and Common Worship treats colour as custom rather than law. What governs Anglican funerals is churchmanship, not the province.

The Episcopal Diocese of Ohio’s account of colours and seasons sets out all three and is unusually clear about the reasoning. On white: “It has become common to use white for funerals as well, the argument being that funerals are primarily celebrations of the Resurrection of the Dead … and only secondarily an occasion to pray for the repose of the deceased’s soul.” Violet, on the same page, “is also appropriate for funerals (supplication for the departed)”. And black is listed as currently serving “Good Friday, All Souls’ Day, funerals, and other offices and masses for the dead.”

The white argument rests on the burial rite itself. The Book of Common Prayer’s order for burial opens with the line that has shaped a generation of Episcopal funerals: “The liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy. It finds all meaning in the resurrection.” A parish reading that sentence and reaching for white is following the book, not ignoring it.

A parish reaching for black is not ignoring it either. Anglo-Catholic parishes across the Communion keep black requiem sets and use them, and in the Church of England purple remains at least as common as white.

Lutheran and Methodist practice, where the two Lutheran bodies differ

The ELCA and the LCMS are separate church bodies with separate worship resources, and they reach broadly the same funeral practice by different routes.

The ELCA’s guidance on vestments and paraments states the general principle — “Paraments as well as vestments are in the color of the day” — and prescribes no funeral colour. In practice white is close to universal in ELCA congregations, on the same resurrection reasoning as the Episcopal argument, with the white pall carrying the point visually.

The LCMS Commission on Worship’s essay on the colours of the liturgical seasons is more restrictive about black than most readers expect: “Black is seen very seldom during the year. The calendar calls for its use only twice; on Good Friday and Ash Wednesday.” It does not address funerals at all. White is the ordinary LCMS funeral colour, and black paraments, where a congregation owns them, tend to stay for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

United Methodist practice is the most settled of the four. The United Methodist Book of Worship‘s section on colours for the Christian year says it in one sentence: “White is recommended at services of death and resurrection because it symbolizes both death and resurrection.” A Methodist congregation buying a funeral set is buying nothing — the white set it owns for Christmas and Easter is the funeral set.

All Souls’ Day is a separate decision

2 November — the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed — behaves differently from a funeral, and it is worth deciding separately rather than by extension.

The difference is who the liturgy is for. A funeral has a bereaved family in the front pew; All Souls’ has a congregation praying for the dead in general, with no coffin and no grief in the room. That is why many parishes that would never use black at a funeral use it on 2 November, and why the Diocese of Ohio’s list keeps black for that day alongside Good Friday. Violet is equally correct in Roman practice. If you are costing a black set, our notes on what a set of three, four or five actually contains will tell you what you are pricing.

A funeral Mass and a memorial service are not the same thing

A funeral Mass or funeral liturgy has the body present. In Roman practice it is the central of the three rites — vigil, funeral liturgy, committal — and where the colour question is normally asked.
A funeral liturgy outside Mass is provided for where Mass cannot be celebrated. The colour provision is the same.
A memorial Mass or memorial service is held without the body, often weeks later, on a day with a colour of its own. Many parishes keep the colour of the day and mark the occasion with the pall or a white frontal, rather than vesting the sanctuary in white in the middle of Ordinary Time.

Where a deacon assists, remember that his vesture follows the same colour but not the same garments — a dalmatic and a stole worn over the left shoulder, never a chasuble. The full picture is in our account of how a deacon vests and why the stole sits across the shoulder.

What a family can reasonably ask for

Families ask about colour more often than clergy expect, and usually they are asking about something else. “Please don’t wear black” nearly always means “we don’t want this to feel like a Victorian funeral”. Neither that nor “he would have wanted blue” is really a request about liturgical colour, and both can be met without touching the vestments.

Explain what the colour is doing. Liturgical colour is not mourning dress; it marks what the Church is doing. Most families accept this at once when it is said out loud.
Offer the choice you actually have. If the parish owns white and violet, offer both and say what each means. Do not offer black if you do not own it.
Move the personal element where it belongs. The flowers, the music, the readings, a photograph at the back of the church, a school scarf on the coffin at the committal. That is where a family’s choices show.
Hold the line on the pall. Where a parish uses one white pall over every coffin, that is the point — the same covering for everyone, whatever the casket cost. Explaining it usually ends the conversation about colour.
Write the policy down. One sheet given to every family at the first meeting stops the argument being had afresh at each death, by whoever happens to be on duty.

If you can only afford one set

Almost nobody should buy a dedicated funeral set first, because in every tradition the funeral colour is one you already own for something else.

Roman Catholic parish: use the violet you own for Lent. It is permitted, it is the universal default, and it costs nothing. Buy black later, and buy it for All Souls’ and requiems rather than for funerals as such.
Episcopal or Anglican parish: white if your funerals are framed as Easter liturgies, violet if they are framed as prayer for the departed. Both are already in the cupboard.
ELCA, LCMS, Methodist or Reformed congregation: the white set is the funeral set. There is nothing else to buy.
Any tradition, if you buy one thing: buy a good white pall before a black chasuble. It is used at every funeral, seen by everyone, and costs a fraction of a vestment set.

The one genuine case for a dedicated set is a parish with frequent requiems — a cathedral, a shrine, a parish attached to a cemetery. There a black set earns its place in a way it will not in a parish burying six people a year.

Common questions

Did the Catholic Church stop using black vestments?

No. Black was retained in the 1970 Missal and is named in GIRM 346 as one of three permitted colours for funerals and Masses for the Dead in this country, alongside violet and white. What happened after the Council was a change in custom, not in law. A priest who vests in black for a requiem today is doing something entirely ordinary.

What colour do Episcopalians use at a funeral?

Usually white, on the strength of the burial rite’s own statement that the liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy. No authorised rubric requires it, so violet and black are also used — black most often in Anglo-Catholic parishes, and at requiems and All Souls’ rather than at ordinary parish funerals.

Can a family choose the vestment colour?

Not directly, in most parishes. Liturgical colour marks what the Church is doing rather than what the family feels, and the choice belongs to the parish and its norms. What a family can shape is everything around it — the readings, the music, the flowers, and what goes on the coffin. Saying that plainly at the first meeting prevents a difficult conversation later.

What colour is used on All Souls’ Day?

Violet or black in Roman practice, and black is common even in parishes that use white at funerals, because no bereaved family is present and the day is explicitly a commemoration of the dead. Anglo-Catholic parishes that keep black generally use it on 2 November. ELCA, LCMS and Methodist congregations that mark the day normally use white.

What to settle before the next funeral

Decide the parish’s normal colour now, in writing, rather than in the sacristy twenty minutes before a service. Check what you own and what condition it is in — funeral sets are called for at short notice and are the ones most often found creased. Confirm whether the deacon’s dalmatic exists in that colour, because it usually does not. And if violet is doing double duty for Lent and requiems, check the shade works for both: a light blue-violet that reads well in Advent looks thin at a graveside, which is why this decision and the choice between violet and blue in Advent are worth taking together. If the garments are unfamiliar, our guide to who wears what covers the rest.