Acolyte

(Gr. akolouthos; Lat. sequens, comes, a follower, an attendant).

An acolyte is a cleric promoted to the fourth and highest minor order in the Latin

Church, ranking next to a subdeacon. The chief offices of an acolyte are to light

the candles on the altar, to carry them in procession, and during the solemn

singing of the Gospel; to prepare wine and water for the sacrifice of the Mass;

and to assist the sacred ministers at the Mass, and other public services of the

Church. In the ordination of an acolyte the bishop presents him with a candle,

extinguished, and an empty cruet, using appropriate words expressive of these

duties. Altar boys are often designated as acolytes and perform the duties of

such. The duties of the acolyte in Catholic liturgical services are fully described

in the manuals of liturgy, e.g. Pio Matinucci, "Manuale Sacrarum

Caeremoniarum" (Rome, 1880), VI, 625; and De Herdt, "Sacrae Liturgiae Praxis"

(Louvain, 1889), II, 28-39.

It is just possible that the obscure passage in the life of Victor I (189-199),

erroneously attributed by Ferraris (I, 101) to Pius I (140-155), concerning

sequentes may really mean acolytes (Duchesne, Lib. Pont., I, 137; cf. I, 161).

Be this as it may, the first authentic document extant in which mention is made

of acolytes is a letter (Eus., Hist. Eccl., VI, xliii), written in 251, by Pope

Cornelius to Fabius, Bishop of Antioch, and in which we possess a definite

enumeration of the Roman clergy. There existed at that time in Rome forty-six

priests, seven deacons, seven sub-deacons, forty-two acolytes, and fifty-two

exorcists, lectors, and doorkeepers. It is worthy of note that two hundred and fifty

years later the "Constitutum Silvestri," a document of about 501 (Mansi, "Coll.

Conc.," II, 626; cf. "Lib. Pont.," ed. Duchesne, Introd., 138), gives forty-five

acolytes as the number in Rome. Pope Fabian (236-250), the immediate

predecessor of Cornelius, had divided Rome into seven ecclesiastical districts or

regions, setting a deacon over each one. A redistribution of the clergy of the city

soon followed according to these seven divisions. The Roman acolytes were

subject to the deacon of the region, or, in case of his absence or death, to the

archdeacon. In each region there was a deacon, a subdeacon, and according to

the numeration above, probably six acolytes. Ancient ecclesiastical monuments

and documents lead us to believe that a subdeacon was a sort of head-acolyte or

arch-acolyte, holding the same relation to the acolytes as the archdeacon to

deacons, with this difference, however, that there was only one archdeacon,

while there was a deacon for each region. As late as the first half of the tenth

century we meet with the term arch-acolyte in Luitprand of Cremona

("Antapodosis", VI, 6; Muratori, "SS. Rer. Ital.", II, 1, 473), where it stands for a

"dignity" (q.v.) in the metropolitan church of Capua. We may therefore regard the

ministry of the subdeacon and acolyte as a development of that of the deacon.

Moreover, these three categories of clerics differ from the lower orders in this,

that they are all attached to the service of the altar, while the others are not.

The letters of St. Cyprian (7, 28, 34, 52, 59, 78, 79) give ample proof of the fact

that at Carthage also, in the middle of the third century, acolytes existed.

Eusebius (De Vita Constant., III, 8) mentions the acolytes present at the Council

of Nice (325), not as designated for the service of the altar, but as persons

attached to the retinue of bishops. The "Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua", often

referred to as the decrees of the so-called Fourth Synod of Carthage (398), but

really belonging to the end of the fifth, or the early part of the sixth, century

(Duchesne, "Christian Worship", 332, 350), prove that this order was then known

in the ecclesiastical province of Arles in Gaul, where these decrees were

enacted. It would seem, however, that all the churches in the West, and more

especially the smaller churches, did not have acolytes. We might conclude that

at Reims, in the fifth century, there were no acolytes, if we could attach credence

to the will of Bishop Bennadius, predecessor of St. Remigius (q.v.). He gives all

the categories of clerics except this one (Flodoard, Hist. Rem. Eccl., I, ix, in

P.L., LXXXV, 43). In the Christian epigraphy of Gaul mention is made, as far as is

known, of only one acolyte, viz., at Lyons in 517 (La Blant, "Inser. chrét. de la

Gaule," I, 36), and, in general, very few epigraphs of acolytes are found in the first

five centuries. In the Irish Collection of Canons (Collectio Canonum Hibernensis,

ed. Wasserschleben, Giessen, 1874, 32) the arch-acolyte is not mentioned

among the seven ecclesiastical degrees, but placed with the psalmist and cantor

outside the ordinary hierarchy.

In the sixth canon of the aforementioned "Statuta" the duties of acolytes are

specified, as they are by a contemporary writer, John the Deacon, in his letter to

Senarius (P.L., LIX, 404). Specific information concerning the place and duties of

acolytes in the Roman Church between the fifth and ninth centuries is drawn from

a series of ancient directions known as the "Ordines Romani" (q.v.-Duchesne,

op. Cit., 146 and passim). According to them there were in Rome (perhaps also

in Carthage, and other large Western cities) three classes of acolytes, all of

whom, nevertheless, had their duties in relation to the liturgical synaxes or

assemblies: (1) those of the palace (palatini), who served the Pope (or bishop) in

his palace, and in the Lateran Basilica; (2) those of the region (regionarii), who

assisted the deacons in their duties in the different parts of the city; (3) those of

the station (stationarii), who served in church; these last were not a distinct

body, but belonged to the regional acolytes. Regional acolytes were also termed

titular (titulares) from the church to which they were attached (Mabillon, "Comm.

in Ord. Rom.", in his "Musaeum Italicum," II, 20; for an old epigraph in Aringhius,

156, see Ferraris, I, 100; Magani, "Antica Lit. Rom.", Milan, 1899, III, 61 - see

also ROME, CITY OF). Acolytes of the palace were destined in a particular

manner to the service of the Pope, assisting him not only in church functions, but

also as ablegates, messengers of the papal court, in distributing alms, carrying

pontifical documents and notices, and performing other duties of like character.

These offices, however, acolytes shared with readers and subdeacons, or

arch-acolytes. At Rome they carried not only the eulogia (q.v.), or blessed bread,

when occasion required, but also the Blessed Eucharist from the Pope's Mass to

that of the priests whose duty it was to celebrate in the churches (tituli). This is

evident from the letter of Innocent I (401-417) to Decentius, Bishop of Gubbio, in

Italy (P.L., XX, 556). They also carried the sacred species to the absent,

especially to confessors of the faith detained in prison (see TARSICIUS). This

office of carrying the Blessed Eucharist, St. Justin, who suffered martyrdom

about 165 or 166, had previously assigned to deacons (Apolog., I, 67), which

would indicate that at that time acolytes did not exist.

We learn still further from the "Ordines Romani" that when the Pope was to

pontificate in a designated district all the acolytes of that region went to the

Lateran Palace to receive and accompany him. In the sixth or seventh century,

perhaps a little earlier, the chief acolyte of the stational church, carrying the

sacred chrism covered with a veil, and, directing the procession, preceded on

foot the horse on which the Pope rode. The other acolytes followed, carrying the

Gospel-book, burses, and other articles used in the holy sacrifice. They

accompanied the Pope to the secretarium or sacristy (see BASILICA). One of

them solemnly placed the book of Gospels upon the altar. They carried seven

lighted candles before the pontiff entering the sanctuary. With lighted candles,

two acolytes accompanied the deacon to the ambo (q.v.) for the singing of the

Gospel. After the Gospel, another acolyte received the book, which, placed in a

case and sealed, was later returned to the Lateran by the head acolyte. An

acolyte carried to the deacon at the altar, the chalice and pall; acolytes received,

and cared for, the offerings gathered by the Pope; an acolyte held the paten,

covered with a veil, from the beginning to the middle of the canon. In due time

acolytes bore, in linen bags, or burses suspended from their necks, the oblata,

or consecrated loaves from the altar to the bishops and priests in the sanctuary;

that they might break the sacred species (see FRACTIO PANIS). It will be seen

from these, and other duties devolving upon acolytes, that they were in a large

measure responsible for the successful carrying out of pontifical and stational

ceremonies. This was particularly true after the foundation of the Schola

Cantorum (q.v.) at Rome, of which there is clear evidence from the seventh

century onward. Being then the only ones in minor orders engaged in active

ministry, acolytes acquired a much greater importance than they had hitherto

enjoyed. Cardinal priests had no other assistants in their titular churches. During

Lent, and at the solemnization of baptism, acolytes fulfilled all the functions

which hitherto had devolved upon the exorcists, just as the subdeacon had

absorbed those of the lector or reader. Alexander VII (1655-67) abolished the

medieval college of acolytes described above and substituted in their place (26

October, 1655) the twelve voting prelates of the Signature of Justice. As evidence

of their origin these prelates still retain, at papal functions, many of the offices or

duties described above.

According to the ancient discipline of the Roman Church the order of acolyte was

conferred as the candidate approached adolescence, about the age of twenty, as

the decree of Pope Siricius (385) to Himerius, Bishop of Tarragona, in Spain, was

interpreted (P.L., XIII, 1142). Five years were to elapse before an acolyte could

receive subdeaconship. Pope Zosimus reduced (418) this term to four years. The

Council of Trent leaves to the judgment of bishops to determine what space

should elapse between the conferring of the acolythate and subdeaconship; it is

also interesting to note, with Dr. Probst (Kirchenlex., I, 385), that the Council's

desire (Sess. XXIII, c. 17, de ref.) concerning the performance of ministerial

services exclusively by minor-order clerics was never fulfilled. In ancient

ecclesiastical Rome there was no solemn ordination of acolytes. At

communion-time in any ordinary Mass, even when it was not stational, the

candidate approached the Pope, or in his absence, one of the bishops of the

pontifical court. At an earlier moment of the Mass he had been vested with the

stole and the chasuble. Holding in his arms a linen bag (porrigitur in ulnas ejus

sacculus super planetam; a symbol of the highest function of these clerics, that

of carrying, as stated above, the consecrated hosts) he prostrated himself while

the Pontiff pronounced over him a simple blessing (Mabillon, op. Cit., II, 85, ed.

Paris, 1724). It may be well to mention here the two prayers of the ancient

Roman Mass-book known as the "Sacramentarium Gregorianum" (Mabillon, Lit.

Rom. Vetus, II, 407), said by the Pontiff over the acolyte, and the first of which is

identical with that of the actual Roman Pontifical "Domine, sancte Pater, aeterne

Deus, qui ad Moysen et Aaron locutus es," etc.

According to the aforementioned "Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua," which give us the

ritual usage of the most important churches in Gaul about the year 500, the

candidate for acolyte was first instructed by the bishop in the duties of his office,

and then a candlestick, with a candle extinguished, was placed in his hand by

the archdeacon, as a sign that the lights of the church would be in his care;

moreover, an empty cruet was given him, symbolical of his office of presenting

wine and water at the altar for the holy sacrifice. A short blessing followed. (See

MINOR ORDERS; FRACTIO PANIS; EUCHARIST; MASS.)

ANDREW B. MEEHAN

Transcribed by Bob Knippenberg

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume I

Nihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York