The Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) assigned an official hood lining pattern to Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary not long after it was founded in 1948. The lining used three colors, arranged in the traditional order of the Russian flag: white on top, blue in the middle, and red on the bottom. For the seminary’s hood the blue color was in the shape of a chevron.

This description first appeared in two books by Kevin Sheard – Academic Heraldry in America (1962) and Academic Dress and Insignia of the World (1970) – and then in a 1972 list by the IBAC. This 1972 citation erroneously stated that the hood’s chevron was black, not blue.

Before World War One the Intercollegiate Bureau had created this lining pattern for faculty teaching in the United States with doctoral degrees from the University of St. Petersburg in Russia. By 1948 this design was obsolete, which is why the Bureau reassigned this pattern to Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary.