The clergy of the three lower grades (minor orders) were united at Rome into the Schola cantorum (choir) and as such took part in the church ceremonies. In Rome itself this office attained to no particular development, as a large part of these duties, namely the actual work necessary in the church building, what is now probably the duty of the sexton, was at Rome performed by the mansionarii. In his letter of 11 March, 494, to the bishops of southern Italy and Sicily, Pope Gelasius says that for admission into the clergy it was necessary that the candidate could read (must, therefore, have a certain amount of education), for without this prerequisite an applicant could, at the most, only fill the office of an ostiary. In a law of 377 of the Codex Theodosianus intended for the Vicariate of Italy, the ostiaries are also mentioned among the clergy who have a right to personal immunity. In Western Europe the office of the ostiary was the lowest grade of the minor clergy. According to the statement of the Liber Pontificalis, an ostiary named Romanus suffered martyrdom in 258 at the same time as St. They are first referred to in the letter of Pope Cornelius to Bishop Fabius of Antioch written in 251., where it is said that there were then at Rome 46 priests, 7 deacons, 7 subdeacons, 42 acolytes, and 52 exorcists, lectors, and ostiaries, or doorkeepers. When, from the end of the second century, the Christian communities began to own houses for holding church services and for purposes of administration, church ostiaries are soon mentioned, at least for the larger cities. In the Roman period all houses of the upper classes had an ostiarius, or ostiary, whose duties were considered very inferior. Porter denoted among the Romans the slave whose duty it was to guard the entrance of the house. Like the other minor orders and the subdiaconate, it is retained in Indult Catholic societies such as the Priestly Fraternity of St. The porter was not a part of Holy Orders administering sacraments but simply a preparatory job on the way to the Major orders: subdiaconate (until its suppression, after the Second Vatican Council by Paul VI), diaconate and the priesthood. Later on, the Porter would also guard, open and close the doors of the Sacristy, Baptistry and elsewhere in the church. The porter had in ancient times the duty of opening and closing the church-door and of guarding the church especially of ensuring no unbaptised persons would enter during the Eucharist.
This was the first order a seminarian was admitted to after receiving the tonsure. In the Roman Catholic Church, this "porter" became the lowest of the four minor orders prescribed by the Council of Trent. For the profession of doorkeeper, see Doorman.Īn ostiarius, a Latin word sometimes anglicized as ostiary but often literally translated as porter or doorman, originally was a servant or guard posted at the entrance of a building.
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