Paschal candle

File:Högaltaret påsknattsmässa Strängnäs domkyrka.jpg

The Paschal candle lit during the Easter Vigil at Strängnäs Evangelical-Lutheran Cathedral in Sweden (2026)

A Paschal candle or Easter candle is a large candle used in liturgies in Western Christianity (viz., the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran Churches, the Anglican Communion, and the Methodist Churches, among others). A new Paschal candle is blessed and lit every year at Easter. It is used throughout the Eastertide and then throughout the year on occasions such as baptisms, funerals and some other special occasions such as the ordination of priests, taking vows or the Consecration of virgins, when the fire from the Paschal candle is carried with a wick to light another liturgical candle, as for example the baptismal candle.

The equivalent of the Paschal candle in the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Paschal trikirion, which differs in both style and usage.

Etymology

The term Paschal comes from the Latin word Pascha, which came from the Hebrew word Pesach (/ˈpɛsɑːx, ˈpeɪ-/; פֶּסַח), meaning Passover, and relates to the Paschal mystery of salvation. It is sometimes referred to as the "Easter candle" or the "Christ candle".

Description

For congregations that use a Paschal candle, it is the largest candle in the worship space. In most cases, the candle will display several common symbols:

1. The cross, which is the most prominent symbol and most clearly identifies it as the Paschal candle
2. The Greek letters alpha and omega, which symbolize that God is the beginning and the end (from the Book of Revelation)
3. The numerals of the current year between the arms of the cross
4. Five grains of incense, which are embedded in the candle (usually encased in red or golden wax "nails"). The "nails" represent the Five Holy Wounds: the three nails that pierced Christ's hands and feet, the spear thrust into his side to wound his heart, and the thorns that crowned his head. The grains of incense are to recall the aromatic spices that were used to prepare Christ's body for the tomb.

In the (medieval) Church, Paschal candles often reached a stupendous size. The Paschal candle of Salisbury Cathedral was said to have been 36 feet (11 metres) tall. At present time, in the United States and Southern Europe (e.g., Italy and France) the candle is approximately 4 inches (10 centimetres) in diameter and 36 to 48 inches (91 to 122 centimetres) tall; in Northern Europe the candle tends to be shorter in height (19 to 24 inches/48 to 61 centimetres) and wider in diameter (3 to 5 inches/7.6 to 12.7 centimetres). The Paschal candle of Manila Cathedral usually reaches 4 or 4.5 inches (10 or 11 centimetres) and stands at 50 inches (130 centimetres) tall.

The Paschal candle, like all liturgical candles, must be made at least from the most part of beeswax (ex cera apum saltem in maxima parte). The Church Fathers saw the bee as a symbol of the Virgin Mary. The beeswax symbolized the pure flesh of Christ, received from his mother.

Usage

Easter Vigil

For churches that celebrate the Easter Vigil on the night of Holy Saturday, the ceremonial preparation, dedication and lighting of the Paschal candle is one of the most solemn moments of the service. The Easter Vigil liturgies of the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian Churches are nearly identical.

On Maundy Thursday of the same week the entire church is darkened by extinguishing all candles and lamps. This and the empty tabernacle symbolise the darkness of a world without Christ.

At the opening of the Easter Vigil a fire is lit and blessed. The minister will cuts a cross in the wax with a stylus and trace the symbols on the Paschal candle, saying words similar to: "Christ, yesterday and today, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega. All time belongs to him and all the ages; to him be glory and power through every age for ever. Amen." He then inserts five grains of incense (reminiscent of the nails used to fasten Christ on the Cross) on the five points of the cross, saying: "By his holy and glorious wounds, may Christ our Lord guard us and keep us. Amen."

The Paschal candle is the first candle to be lit with a flame from this sacred fire, representing the light of Christ coming into the world. This represents the risen Christ, as a symbol of light (life) dispelling darkness (death). Before it is lit, the minister says words similar to: "May the light of Christ, rising in glory, dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds."

Typically, the worshiping assembly then processes into the church led by the Paschal candle. The candle is raised three times during the procession, accompanied by the chant "The light of Christ" to which the assembly responds "Thanks be to God".

In some communities, it is common for nearby churches of different Christian denominations (e.g. Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian) to make the new Easter Fire together and then after this, each congregation processes back to their own church with their own Paschal Candle for their Easter Vigil celebration; this is considered to be a fostering of ecumenism.

Following the procession the Exultet is chanted, traditionally by a deacon, but it may be chanted by the priest or – most parts of it – by a cantor. The Exultet concludes with the offering of the candle: From the Roman Missal:

On this, your night of grace, O holy father, accept this candle, a solemn offering, the work of bees and of your servants' hands, an evening sacrifice of praise, this gift from your most holy Church. But now we know the praises of this pillar, which glowing fire ignites for God's honor, a fire into many flames divided, yet never dimmed by sharing of its light, for it is fed by melting wax, drawn out by mother bees to build a torch so precious. O truly blessed night, when things of heaven are wed to those of earth, and divine to the human. Therefore, O Lord, we pray you that this candle, hallowed to the honor of your name, may persevere undimmed, to overcome the darkness of this night. Receive it as a pleasing fragrance, and let it mingle with the lights of heaven. May this flame be found still burning by the Morning Star: the one Morning Star who never sets, Christ your son, who, coming back from death's domain, has shed his peaceful light on humanity, and lives and reigns for ever and ever.

After the Litany of the Saints, the Paschal candle is lowered three times into the Easter water to be blessed while the priest sings a prayer of blessing with the request for the descent of the Holy Spirit. In some Eastern traditions, wax is dripped into the water for an even richer symbolism.

Other times of the year

The candle remains in the sanctuary close to the altar and is lit at least in all the more solemn worship services until Pentecost (or in some traditions until Ascension Day, when it is extinguished just after the Gospel). In this context the Paschal candle symbolises the presence of the glorified risen Christ.

After Eastertide, the candle should be kept in the baptistry, so that in the celebrations of baptisms the candles of the baptized may be lit from the candle. The Paschal candle is lit during baptisms to signify the Holy Spirit and fire that John the Baptist promised to those who were baptised in Christ.

Before 1955, the option existed of blessing the baptismal font on the Vigil of Pentecost, and this was the only time the Paschal candle would be lit at services after Ascension. In the Ordinary form of the Roman Rite, the Paschal candle is lit and should be placed near the coffin during the Mass of the repose of the soul or the Requiem. This is to indicate that the death of a Christian is his or her own passover.

Eastern usage

In the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches, there is no direct correspondence to the Western Paschal candle. However, throughout Bright Week, the priest carries a cross and paschal trikirion at all of the services, especially when censing, during the Little Entrance or when giving the Paschal greeting. The trikirion consists of three lit candles in a candlestick, which the priest carries in his left hand. In the Slavic tradition, the three candles may be white or different colors: green, red, blue. The deacon also carries a special Paschal candle which is a single large candle whenever he leads an ektenia (litany) or censes.

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

The blessing of the "Paschal Candle", which is a column of wax of exceptional size, usually fixed in a great candlestick specially destined for that purpose, is a notable feature of the service on Holy Saturday. The blessing is performed by the deacon, wearing a white dalmatic. A long Eucharistic prayer, the "Præconium paschali" or "Exultet", is chanted by him, and in the course of this chanting the candle is first ornamented with five grains of incense and then lighted with the newly blessed fire. At a later stage in the service, during the blessing of the font, the same candle is plunged three times into the water with the words: Descendat in hanc plenitudinem fontis virtus Spiritus Sancti" (May the power of the Holy Spirit come down into the fulness of this fountain). From Holy Saturday until Ascension Day the paschal candle is left with its candlestick in the sanctuary, standing upon the Gospel side of the altar, and it is lighted during high Mass and solemn Vespers on Sundays. It is extinguished after the Gospel on Ascension Day and is then removed.

The results of recent research seem all to point to the necessity of assigning a very high antiquity to the paschal candle. Dom Germain Morin (Revue Bénédictine, Jan., 1891, and Sept., 1892) has successfully vindicated, against Mgr. Duchesne and others, the authenticity of the letter of St. Jerome to Presidius, deacon of Placentia (Migne, P. L., XXX, 188), in which the saint replies to a request that he would compose a, carmen cerei, in other words, a form of blessing like our "Exultet". Clearly this reference to a carmen cerei (poem of the candle) must presuppose the existence, in 384, of the candle itself which was to be blessed by the deacon with such a form, and the saint's reply makes it probable that the practice was neither of recent introduction nor peculiar to the church of Placentia. Again St. Augustine (De Civit. Dei, XV, xxii) mentions casually that he had composed a laus cerei in verse; and from specimens of similar compositions — all of them, however, bearing a close family resemblence to our "Exultet "-which are found in the works of Ennodius (Opusc., 14 and 81), it appears that there can be no sufficient ground for doubting the correctness of this statement. Moreover, Mgr. Mercati has now shown good reason for believing that the existing "Præconium paschale" of thc Ambrosian Rite was composed in substance by St. Ambrose himself or else founded upon hymns of which he was the author (see "Studi e Testi", XII, 37-38). There is, therefore, no occasion to refuse to Pope Zosimus (c. 417) the credit of having conceded the use of the paschal candle to the suburbicarian churches of Rome, although the mention of this fact is only found in the second edition of the "Liber Pontificalis". Mgr. Duchesne urges that this institution has left no trace in the earliest purely Roman Ordines, such as the Einsiedeln Ordo and that of Saint-Amand; but these speak of two faculæ; (torches) which were carried to the font before the pope and were plunged into the water as is now done with the paschal candle. The question of size or number does not seem to be very vital. The earliest council which speaks upon the subject, viz., the Fourth of Toledo (A.D. 633, cap. ix), seems to couple together the blessing of the lucerna and cereus as of equal importance and seems also to connect them both symbolically with some sacramentum, i.e. mystery of baptismal illumination and with the Resurrection of Christ. And undoubtedly the paschal candle must have derived its origin from the splendours of the celebration of Easter Eve in the early Christian centuries. As pointed out in the article HOLY WEEK, our present morning service on Holy Saturday can be shown to represent by anticipation a service which in primitive times took place late in the evening; and which culminated in the blessing; of the font and the baptism of the catechumens, followed immediately by Mass shortly after midnight on Easter morning. Already in the time of Constantine we are told by Eusebius (De Vita Constantini, IV, xxii) that the emperor "transformed the night of the sacred vigil into the brilliancy of day, by lighting throughout the whole city pillars of wax (kerou kionas), while burning lamps illuminated every part, so that this mystic vigil was rendered brighter than the brightest daylight". Other Fathers, like St. Gregory Nazianzus and St. Gregory of Nyssa, also give vivid descriptions of the illumination of the Easter vigil. Further, it is certain, from evidence that stretches back as far as Tertullian and Justin Martyr, that upon this Easter eve the catechumens were baptized and that this ceremony of baptism was spoken of as photismos, i.e., illumination. Indeed, it seems highly probable that this is already referred to in Heb., x, 22, where the words "being illuminated" seem to be used in the sense of being baptized (cf. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Cat. i, n. 15). Whether consciously designed for that purpose or not, the paschal candle typified Jesus Christ, "the true light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world", surrounded by His illuminated, i.e. newly baptized disciples, each holding a smaller light. In the virgin wax a later symbolism recognized the most pure flesh which Christ derived from His blessed Mother, in the wick the human soul of Christ, and in the flame the divinity of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Moreover, the five grains of incense set cross-wise in the candle recalled the sacred wounds retained in Christ's glorified body and the lighting of the candle with new fire itself served as a lively image of the resurrection.

Of the practice of medieval and later times regarding the paschal candle much might be said. We learn on the authority of Bede, speaking of the year 701, that it was usual in Rome to inscribe the date and other particulars of the calendar either upon the candle itself or on a parchment affixed to it. Further, in many Italian basilicas the paschal candlestick was a marble construction which was a permanent adjunct of the ambo or pulpit. Several of these still survive, as in San Lorenzo fuori della mura at Rome. Naturally the medieval tendency was to glorify the paschal candle by making it bigger and bigger. At Durham we are told of a magnificent erection with dragons and shields and seven branches, which was so big that it had to stand in the centre of the choir. The Sarum Processional of 1517 directs that the paschal candle, no doubt that of Salisbury cathedral, is to be thirty-six feet in height, while we learn from Machyn's diary that in 1558, under Queen Mary, three hundred weight of wax was used for the paschal candle of Westminster Abbey. In England these great candles, after they had been used for the last time in blessing the font on Whitsun Eve, were generally melted down and made into tapers to be used gratuitously at the funerals of the poor (see Wilkins, "Concilia", I, 571, and II, 298) At Rome the Agnus Deis were made out of the remains of the paschal candles, and Mgr. Duchesne seems to regard these consecrated discs of wax as likely to be even older than the paschal candle itself.

BERLIÈRE in Messager des Fidèles (Maredsous, 1888), 107 ssq.; MÜHLBAUER, Geschichte und Bedeutung der Wachslichter bei den kirch. Funktionen, 184 sqq.; MORIN in Revue Bénédictine (Maredsous, Jan., 1891, and Sept., 1892); IDEM in Rassegna Gregoriana, II (Rome, 1903) 193-194; MERCATI in Studi e Testi, No. XII (Rome, 1904), 24-43, where is also printed an Hispano-Visigothic formula of the Præconium Paschale belonging seventh century; CABROL, Le Livre de la Prière Antique (Paris, 1902); THURSTON in The Month (London), April, 1896; IDEM, Lent and Holy Week (London, 1904); MARTÈNE, De antiquis ecclesiæ ritibus, IV, xxiv.

External links

• The Candle Carving Site
• Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Paschal Candle". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.