Tonsure
Tonsure is the practice of some Christian churches of cutting the hair from the scalp of clerics. There were three forms of tonsure known in the seventh and eighth centuries:
(1) The Oriental, which claimed the authority of St. Paul and consisted in shaving the whole head. This was observed by churches owing allegiance to Eastern Orthodoxy. Hence Theodore of Tarsus, who had acquired his learning in Byzantine Asia Minor and bore this tonsure, had to allow his hair to grow for four months before he could be tonsured after the Roman fashion, and then ordained Archbishop of Canterbury by Pope Vitalian in 668.
(2) The Celtic, this consisted in shaving the whole front of the head from ear to ear, the hair being allowed to hang down behind. The Roman party in Britain attributed the origin of this tonsure to Simon Magnus, though some traced it back to the swineherd of Loegaire, the Irish king who opposed St. Patrick. The fact that it was common to all of the Celts, both insular and continental, is a sufficient refutation of the latter view. Some practicers of Celtic Christianity claimed for this, as for their Easter practices, the authority of St. John. It is entirely plausible that the Celts were merely observing an older practice which had become obsolete elsewhere.
(3) The Roman, this consisted in shaving only the top of the head, so as to allow the hair to grow in the form of a crown. This was the practice of the Catholic church until it was abolished in 1972. This practice is claimed to have originated with St. Peter.
Needless to say, these claimed origins are unhistorical; the early history of the tonsure is lost in obscurity. This practice is not improbably connected with the Roman idea that long hair is the mark of a freeman, while the shaven head marks the slave.
Based on Charles Plummer's essay, "Excusrsus on the Pascal Controversy and Tonsure" (in his edition of Bede's Opera Historica, 1898).
Today in Eastern Orthodoxy, there are three types of tonsure; baptismal, monastic and clerical. Baptismal tonsure is performed during the rite of Holy Baptism to as a " offering of first fruits" of the one baptized. Monastic tonsure ( of which there are three grades, Rassophore, Stavrophore and Great Schema) is the rite of initiation into the monastic state and finally clerical tonsure , which is done prior to the ordination to the lowest clerical rank, that of reader. It is a common misconception that one is " tonsured a reader" , but this is not technically correct. The rite of tonsure occures prior to the actual ordination by laying on of hands. In the Orthodox Church, the rite always consists of the cutting of four locks of hair in a cruciform pattern "In the Name of the Father( front of head) and the Son (back of head) and the Holy Spirit ( either side of the head)".
In the Roman Catholic Church, tonsure refered to the rite inducting a person into the clergy. Once a seminarian received the tonsure, he was officially considered a cleric, and in medieval times obtained the civil benefits of clerics. He could then also receive the minor orders which were prerequisites to the major orders. Today, though, one becomes a cleric by being ordained deacon. Paul VI adopted this rule in 1972 while simultaneously suppressing the tonsure, the minor orders, and the subdiaconate.
