Reply To: Disturbed by Knight and Castle Guard Costumes

Just my happence-yes it is widespread in secular and in church symbolism as well.

However:Take the symbol away from the costume and use it solely as a decoration or perhaps, wear it as a pendant, brooch, ring, earring etc.. as is common and readily available for purchase.

It would undoubtedly be interpreted by many onlookers as wearing a christian symbol.

Regarding your citation of clovus there are many places that claim that fleur was the flower used in his baptisim or that an angel presented it to him upon his acceptance of the so called savior.There are many other sources of its religious use prior to heraldry, not neccessarily the legend of picking the lilly.

Cited from many sources, regarding its transformation into more modern use ” The fleur has been used to represent French royalty, and in that sense it is said to signify perfection, light, and life.” It has since been adopted by many monar…to show divine origin”

Obviously they attribute a level of avoda zara to this symbol regarding sources which say the flower was heavenly sent.

Even on a popular tourist website for new orleans( which uses it as a city and football team logo)the fleur is referred to as a symbol of a saint.

Many offices of knights of columbus(the largest catholic fraternity in the world) have fleurs on their signage.

Again I will reiterate what I wrote above Forget about the knight costume or the fleur.It could be anything else instead that has a religious significance to non-Jewish people.

I did this post simply to make people aware of what they are buying.Many people would not want to wear anything that has a known association or symbol that was and still is given a significance by the church. Even knowing just about a chance of its association with avoda zara would make many people refrain from buying such an item.