Red doors

During lunch earlier this week, Fr. Daniel mentioned something about painting the front doors red, as is commonly done by Anglican churches. This surprised me because I hadn't noted that, and thinking back I could only remember one church whose front door might have been a dark red.

But Fr. Daniel is right -- there is a tradition! I did a little Google search and found this:

Many Anglican (Episcopal) churches boast red doors for theological reasons. This goes back to the Middle Ages, when the north, south and east doors were painted red, symbolizing the Blood of Christ, to indicate that churches were designated Sanctuary, where anyone was safe from danger. Some other mainline Protestant churches, such as Lutheran churches, have red doors as Wittenberg Cathedral, where Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses, had red doors, and by tradition, this marks such churches as Reformed churches. (Another school of thought holds that church doors are painted red to indicate the mortgage has been paid off!)

Hmmm.... our doors are probably WNW, but the mortgage has been paid off...