The surplice was also associated with the monastic orders, but vesture distinguished only the order and not the kind of order.
On the deacon, the epitrachēlion is pinned to the left shoulder and hangs in front and behind; with this exception, the deacon's vesture is identical with the priest's.
The Reformation of the 16th century varied in intensity from one country to another, and the fate of liturgical vesture suffered accordingly.
The upheavals of the 16th, 19th, and 20th centuries have not had much effect on Eastern Orthodox vesture, and the same canons (rules) prevail today in Orthodoxy as obtained prior to the fall of Constantinople in the 15th century.
This may be less immediately obvious in the case of vesture than in architecture, but one result of overreacting was the loss, in the 19th century, of the customary dress of the clergy.
In spite of this, standard vesture in Presbyterian churches is now the black gown and white linen bands over cassock and cincture, with the academic hood added for preaching services as a mark of learning appropriate to the pulpit, and a stole or scarf (see also Protestantism).
According to the richness of the liturgical or ritual vocabulary employed, the more feasibly can a symbology of vesture be attempted.
Because of the diversity of the monastic orders, only a summary account of their vesture may be given.
Its author speaks of "embodying the Divine Spirit of religion in a new Mythus, in a new vehicle and vesture," but he never says very clearly what the new vesture is to be.
Jewish vesture is an amalgam of very ancient and extremely modern religious dress.
