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Advent begins November 29

The Almanac

The Advent wreath

A ring of evergreen with four candles, lit one more each Sunday before Christmas.

A nineteenth-century wood engraving of a long hall with rows of benches, where children and teachers sit for prayers.
The prayer hall of the Rauhes Haus in Hamburg, from the Illustrirte Zeitung, 1846. Public domain. Credits
When it is kept
Four Sundays before Christmas
Where it fits in the year
Advent

The modern Advent wreath is credited to Johann Hinrich Wichern, a Lutheran pastor in Hamburg, Germany. In 1833 he opened the Rauhes Haus, a home for poor and troubled children.1,2 The children kept asking when Christmas would come. In 1839, in the prayer room of the home, he hung up a large wooden ring with a candle for each day of Advent.1,3

It was made from an old cartwheel. Small red candles marked the ordinary days and four large white candles marked the Sundays.1,3 Accounts differ on how many small candles there were, from about 18 to 24, because Advent can start on different dates.2,3 Evergreen branches were added around 1860. Later the wreath became small enough for a table, with just four candles.3

The wreath spread first among German Protestants. A Catholic church in Cologne used one in 1925 and one in Munich in 1930.3,1 According to one scholar’s research it did not reach North America until the 1930s.1

Colors differ from church to church. Many churches light three violet candles and one rose-pink candle on the third Sunday. Some Lutheran churches use blue.4,5

Later teaching, not part of the beginning

Each candle has one fixed meaning: hope, peace, joy and love. Churches use several different sets of names, and they come from teaching materials written long after Wichern. His wreath of 1839 is not recorded as carrying any names.4,1

Disputed

Some say the wreath goes back to old pre-Christian Germanic customs. The written record starts with Wichern in 1839.4,1

In the Bible

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. The light has shined on those who lived in the land of the shadow of death.

Isaiah 9:2

Again, therefore, Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”

John 8:12

The wreath itself is not in the Bible. Its growing light matches these words, and many Christians read the candles that way.

Sources

  1. Advent wreath, Wikipedia (Wichern, 1839, the spread to Catholics and to North America)
  2. The Advent wreath: four candles conquer the world, Hamburg Tourism
  3. Adventskranz, German Wikipedia (the cartwheel, the evergreens around 1860)
  4. Symbolism of the Advent wreath, Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod
  5. Second Sunday of Advent, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops