Censer (Thurible)

The censer — thymiaterion in Greek, kadilo in Slavonic, "thurible" in older English — is a covered metal bowl, usually gilded, suspended on chains from a handle or crossplate. Inside burns a piece of charcoal; onto it the clergy place grains of incense, which melt and release their fragrance as smoke through the pierced lid. The censer is swung in a small arc so that the coal stays alive and the smoke is directed — toward the altar, the icons, the people.

Most censers hang on four chains, and many, especially in Slavic use, carry twelve small bells. The customary explanations are lovely — the four chains as the four Evangelists, the twelve bells as the preaching of the twelve apostles, and in some tellings one bell left silent for Judas — but these are pious readings of a practical object, not dogma: plenty of censers have other numbers of bells, or none, and in some traditions the belled censer is reserved to a bishop. Alongside the swung censer, Orthodox practice also knows standing censers and the simple hand censer, a small bowl with a handle, used in certain services and widely at home.

The meaning of the censer is fixed by the verse the Church sings at every Vespers, at the very moment the church is being censed: "Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice" (Psalm 141:2). Smoke rises; so should prayer. The image is completed in the Revelation of St. John, where an angel stands at the heavenly altar "having a golden censer," and the smoke of the incense ascends before God "with the prayers of the saints" (Revelation 8:3-4). When the deacon censes the church, earth is rehearsing what heaven is already doing.

Each time incense is offered, the priest blesses it with a short prayer, asking Christ to accept it upon His heavenly altar and to send down in return the grace of the Holy Spirit — offering and gift moving in both directions, like the smoke that rises and the fragrance that settles. The tradition also loves to read the censer itself as an image of the Incarnation: the coal glowing with fire, as the humanity of Christ united to the fire of divinity — the same coal the seraph brought to Isaiah's lips.

Censing runs through the whole of Orthodox worship, though the details vary by service and jurisdiction. At Vespers the church is censed during "Lord, I have cried"; at Matins during the Magnificat and at other appointed moments; at the Divine Liturgy before the Gospel, at the Cherubic Hymn, and during the Anaphora; and at memorial services and funerals the censer scarcely rests. Before censing, a deacon asks the priest's blessing over the incense — nothing in the altar is done unblessed.

The order of censing is itself a small catechism: first the Holy Table and the sanctuary, then the icons, and then the people. The faithful are censed because a human being is an icon of God — the honor given to the images made with hands is given also to the images made by God. When the censer swings toward you, the usual custom is a slight bow: the smoke honors the image of God in you, and the bow returns the honor to God.