How to Wear a Stole: Priest, Deacon and Bishop, Straight or Crossed, Over or Under
Priest and bishop: round the neck, straight, ends level, under the chasuble. Deacon: left shoulder to right hip, fastened. Over a surplice, always straight. When the crossed stole is right, and when it is not.
On this page
On this page
A priest wears the stole around the neck with both ends hanging straight down the front. A deacon wears it over the left shoulder, across the chest, and fastened at the right hip. A bishop wears it as a priest does. It goes over the alb and under the chasuble or dalmatic; over a surplice or cotta it is the outermost thing you wear. That is the whole rule in the current Roman books and in Anglican practice, and the rest of this page is the detail behind it — including the crossed stole, which is where most of the arguments start.
If you are choosing a stole rather than learning to wear one, the length chart and the ordination stole guide are the pages you want. This one is for the morning you first put it on.
The rule as written
The General Instruction of the Roman Missal, which governs the Ordinary Form, is unusually plain. Paragraph 340: “The stole is worn by the Priest around his neck and hanging down in front of his chest, while it is worn by the Deacon over his left shoulder and drawn diagonally across the chest to the right side, where it is fastened.” Paragraph 337 puts the chasuble “over the alb and stole,” and paragraph 338 puts the deacon’s dalmatic “over the alb and stole” likewise, adding that the dalmatic “may be omitted out of necessity or on account of a lesser degree of solemnity” — in which case the deacon’s diagonal stole is what people see.
Anglican practice matches it. One diocesan guide puts it in a sentence: “Deacons wear them on their left shoulder crossed diagonally over the chest and Priests and Bishops wear them over the neck, each end hanging parallel,” and the stole is “worn over the Alb or the Surplice.” Lutheran pastors, where the stole is used, wear it as a priest does, straight over the alb.
Priest: straight, and what “straight” means
Straight means the two ends hang parallel down the front, at equal length, from a point at the back of the neck. Three practical notes:
- Equal length. A stole that hangs an inch longer on one side reads as carelessness from the back of the church, because the embroidery on the two ends no longer lines up. Set it at the neck, not by tugging the ends.
- The back of the neck. Most stoles have a shaped or padded yoke and a small cross at the centre back. The cross goes at the nape and stays there; if it has drifted to one shoulder by the Gospel, the stole is too narrow at the yoke for your neck or the alb collar is fighting it.
- Length. The ends should fall somewhere between the knee and mid-shin depending on height and taste, and should never hang below the alb hem. If your stole does, it is a length problem, not a wearing problem — the height chart sorts it out.
The crossed stole
For most of the Roman Church’s history a priest crossed the stole over his chest and held it with the cincture, and a good many priests still do. The custom is ancient: Fr John Zuhlsdorf, defending it, notes that in the older ordination rite the bishop arranges the new priest’s stole “in the form of a cross over his chest, his heart (in the manner of a priest)” and dates the Roman tradition to roughly the seventh century. Crossing was also, for centuries, the visible difference between a priest and a bishop, who wore his stole straight.
The current Instruction says “hanging down in front of his chest”, which, as Fr Zuhlsdorf concedes, “suggests that the priest is not to cross the stole” while remaining “somewhat ambiguous”, since a crossed stole also hangs down in front. So the position is this:
| Setting | Priest’s stole | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Mass in the Ordinary Form | Straight is the norm; crossed is tolerated and common with a Roman (fiddleback) chasuble | GIRM 340 wording; long custom |
| Mass in the Extraordinary Form (1962 Missal) | Crossed over the chest and secured by the cincture | The rubrics of the older Missal assume it; the ordination rite arranges it so |
| Over a surplice or cotta (Benediction, baptisms, funerals outside Mass) | Straight, never crossed | There is no cincture to hold a crossed stole, and it never was crossed here |
| Anglican and Lutheran use | Straight | Crossing was never the custom outside the Roman rite |
Two consequences for the shopper. A stole you intend to cross needs to be long enough to cross and still reach the knee, which adds several inches; and it needs a plain or narrow section at the chest, because a large embroidered medallion at breast height will fold in half when crossed. If you buy an Ordinary Form stole with a big central motif and then cross it, the motif disappears.
Deacon: over the left shoulder
The deacon’s stole goes over the left shoulder, crosses the chest and the back diagonally, and fastens at the right hip. Fastening is the part that goes wrong. A deacon’s stole is made either with a tie, a hook, or a loop and button at the right hip, and it must be fastened — a diagonal stole left loose slides off the shoulder the first time the deacon raises the Book of the Gospels. If your stole came without a fastening, a sacristan with a needle can add one in ten minutes.
The left shoulder is not negotiable and is the same in every Western church. A deacon who puts it over the right shoulder has, to anyone who knows, put it on backwards. Under the dalmatic the stole is invisible except at the shoulder; without the dalmatic it is the deacon’s whole vestment, which is why a deacon’s stole is usually made a little wider and more decorated than a priest’s, and why it should be a good one. The article on what deacons wear covers the dalmatic and the rest.
Bishop
A bishop wears the stole straight, as a priest does, and under the chasuble. The old visual distinction — priest crossed, bishop straight — has largely gone in the Ordinary Form, where everyone hangs it straight, and survives only where priests cross theirs. A bishop’s stole at Mass is otherwise identical in form to a priest’s; the pectoral cross is worn over the alb and under the chasuble, and the stole passes over the cross’s chain.
Over what, and under what
The order of vesting at Mass, for a priest, is alb, cincture, stole, chasuble; the stole is the third layer and the chasuble covers it. The stole is never worn over the chasuble in the Roman rite — that arrangement was expressly ended in the 1960s and has stayed ended, and it is the one stole error that a bishop will correct in writing. Outside Mass, over a cassock and surplice, the stole is the top layer and hangs straight.
Some things a stole is not worn with:
- A tippet or preaching scarf. That is a black scarf worn at the Offices; it hangs straight like a priest’s stole but it is not one, and the two are not worn together. The tippet article explains the difference.
- A clergy shirt alone. A stole over a shirt and no alb or surplice is seen at hospital bedsides and in emergencies, where it is proper because the alternative is nothing. It is not proper at a planned liturgy.
- Street clothes for a photograph. It looks like a costume because it is one.
Colour and matching
The stole follows the liturgical colour of the day, and where a chasuble is worn the two should match — a green stole under a white chasuble is the most common vesting error in a parish with a shared sacristy. Where there is no chasuble, the stole alone carries the colour, which is why a deacon or a priest at a baptism outside Mass needs the full set of colours even if the parish owns only one chasuble in each. The colour chart gives the calendar by tradition.
Common questions
Do priests still cross their stoles?
Some do, mostly those who celebrate the older form or wear a Roman-cut chasuble. The Ordinary Form norm is straight, and straight is always correct. Crossed is a lawful custom rather than a rule, and it is never done over a surplice.
Which shoulder does a deacon wear the stole on?
The left. It crosses to the right hip and is fastened there. This is the same in Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran use.
Does the stole go over or under the chasuble?
Under. Alb, cincture, stole, then chasuble. The stole is visible only where the chasuble’s neckline reveals it, which is why the yoke and the first few inches below it carry the most embroidery.
Can a stole be worn without an alb?
Over a cassock and surplice, yes, and that is its normal dress for baptisms, funerals, Benediction and confessions. Over a shirt alone, only when nothing else is to hand.
How do I keep the stole from slipping?
For a priest’s stole, a properly shaped yoke that sits at the nape and, if crossing, the cincture. For a deacon’s, the fastening at the hip. A straight stole that keeps sliding to one side is usually too narrow at the neck or too light; a heavier stole with a padded yoke stays put on its own.
The short version
Priest and bishop: round the neck, straight, ends level, under the chasuble. Deacon: left shoulder to right hip, fastened. Over the surplice, always straight. Crossed only at the older Mass or by custom under a Roman chasuble, and never over a surplice. Every stole we make is cut for one of these ways of wearing — the priest’s and the deacon’s are different patterns, not the same stole worn differently — and the ordination stole is the one most often bought without knowing which, so say which you need when you order.
