MINISTER OF THE PONTIFICAL CHAPEL. — This office is more properly called assistant minister to sacred functions (v. ANNO. Pont., 1951, p. 912). In addition to the Monsignor Sacristan of His Holiness, the following are counted among these ministers (Constitution *Pro pastorali officii* of Alexander VII, dated 10 Dec. 1655), with the specific title of sacred ministers at the Masses of the Pontifical Chapel: three canons of the patriarchal basilicas, namely, that of St. John Lateran, as priest assistant, that of St. Peter, as deacon, and that of St. Mary Major, as subdeacon.
Two of the pontifical singers, when they were also papal chaplains and apostolic subdeacons, served as deacon and subdeacon at the solemn Pontifical Mass of the Pope and at other Masses celebrated by cardinals and bishops in the Papal Chapel; this, however, occurred before the constitution *Nuper, certis ex causis* of Alexander VII (26 Oct. 1655), since with this constitution the Pope entrusted the functions of apostolic subdeacon to the auditors of the Rota, already papal chaplains, and the functions of acolyte to the voting prelates of the Apostolic Signatura (cf. constitution *Ad incrementum decoris* of Pius XI, 15 Aug. 1934: AAS, 26 [1934], pp. 497 ff.).
The ordinary chaplains of His Holiness are also ministers of the Pontifical Chapel and servers of the same, exercising the office of candle-bearing acolytes (v. FAMIGLIA PONTIFICIA).