THE ordinations season is coming round once again, and a new crop of deacons are about to be launched into parish life, along with those deaconed last year who are about to become priests.

It is, perhaps, worth remembering that the technical name for a Church of England minister is “clerk in holy orders” (hence terms such as “clergy” and “cleric”). The phrase is a reminder that, in the Churches of the Reformation, the clergy are, indeed, “clerks”: those who are “educated” in scripture and are, therefore, capable of teaching the flock and offering pastoral care. That is why the choir dress of the English clergy is a form of academic dress, complete with university or college hood, and usually worn with a surplice.

Anyone who thinks that some of today’s church preoccupations tend to be trivial should explore the controversies over surplices during and beyond the Reformation era. Percy Dearmer, the author of The Parson’s Handbook (1899), judged that the surplice was a beautiful garment (but I do not expect that he had to do the ironing).

Those now preparing for ordination will probably have to buy or borrow a cassock, surplice, and stole for the ordination, though very Protestant-minded clergy-to-be may prefer scarf and hood to stole. Most will have already bought clerical shirts, tried them on in the mirror, and been surprised, delighted, or horrified at the unfamiliar person (parson?) staring back at them.

With the decline in the number of ordinands, and the preference of many not to wear distinctive dress, there is less business for clerical outfitters these days. Well-established firms have been forced to close or merge. I was devastated when LJ Clerical Shirts gave up. They operated out of an industrial estate in Essex, and made the best tonsure-style shirts that I have ever had, with a brilliant invisible fastening that no one else has managed to replicate. A small joy, but I miss it.

In our class-conscious society, there will be many who regret the association of clergy with “status” and believe that they are more accessible in ordinary clothes. This assumes, of course, that there are “ordinary” clothes. But clothes are always coded symbols. Jeans and trainers send a particular message, as do jackets and chinos, suits and shorts, dresses, skirts, tops, and jeans.

We dress to say who we are, and to manage others’ expectations. It does not seem unreasonable to me to understand a sober-coloured clerical shirt as a sign of witness, not indicating superiority, but availability to God and others: a truncated form of monastic garb. In a society that has lost touch with scripture and, with it, all kinds of “habits” of understanding, there is something to be said for the clergy to be visible, even if the first sight of oneself in a clerical shirt causes a frisson of panic.