In most of the reformed churches the use of mitres was aban doned with that of the other vestments. They have continued to be worn, however, by the bishops of the Scandinavian Lutheran churches. In the Church of England the liturgical use of the mitre was discontinued at the Reformation, but was revived in the latter part of the 19th century, and is now fairly widespread. In the Orthodox Eastern Church the mitre is proper only to bishops. Its form differs entirely from that of the Latin Church. In general it rather resembles a closed crown, surmounted by a cross. In Russia the cross usually lies flat, only certain metro politans, and by prescription the bishops of the eparchy of Kiev, having the right to have the cross upright. In the Armenian Church priests and archdeacons, as well as the bishops, wear a mitre. Tnat of the bishops is of the Latin form, a custom dating from a grant of Pope Innocent III. ; that of the oriests, the sag valiant, is not unlike the Greek mitre. In the Syrian Church only the patriarch wears a mitre, which resembles that of the Greeks.
The biruna of the Chaldaean Nestorians, on the other hand, worn by all bishops, is a sort of hood ornamented with a cross. Coptic priests and bishops wear the ballin, a long strip of stuff orna mented with crosses, etc., and wound turban-wise round the head; the patriarch of Alexandria has a helmet-like mitre, the origin of which is unknown, though it perhaps antedates the appearance of the phrygium at Rome. The Maronites, and the uniate Jacobites, Chaldaeans and Copts have adopted the Roman mitre.
The mitre was introduced into the Greek rite only after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks (1453).
See J. Braun, S.J., Die liturgische Gewandung, pp. 424-498 (5907) The question of the use of the mitre in the Anglican Church is dealt with in the Report of the Sub-committee of the Convocation of Canterbury on the Ornaments of the Church and its Ministers (1908). See also the bibliography to the article VESTMENTS.