Ostiariate

OSTIARIATE. – The last in dignity among the minor Orders, the first in conferral. It confers upon the cleric the office of porter (ostiarius) of the Church.

I. HISTORY

The first testimony concerning the ostiariate is found in the letter written in 251 by Pope St. Cornelius to Fabius of Antioch (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VI, 43, 11): the Pope lists the ostiaries among the members of the clergy, but in the last place. The Lib. Pont. (I, p. 55) mentions a Romanus ostiarius, companion in martyrdom of St. Lawrence, and in the enumeration of the ranks of the hierarchy made under Pope Caius (ibid., p. 161) replaces the ostiary with the custos martyrum, whereas in that drawn up under

St. Sylvester it regularly mentions the ostiaries. The ostiariate is discussed by St. Augustine (Confess., 6, 2: PL 32, 719) and by Pope Gelasius, incidentally in a letter of 494 (PL 59, 47), recalling that at Rome, toward the end of the fifth century, they were replaced by the mansionarii (v.) who were not part of the clergy; it is nevertheless thought that the ostiariate remained in force as a simple hierarchical rank; an inscription from Tre-

(fot. Scavi della Soprintendenza di Ostia)
OSTIA — Christian oratory near the theater.

viri recalls an Ursatius ustiarius. About a dozen ancient inscriptions contain the designation ostiarius (cf. Leclercq and E. Diehl, Inscript. lat. christ. veteres, Berlin 1925–31, V. index, p. 374). The extensive correspondence of St. Cyprian is silent about this Order. In Spain, the Council of Toledo of 592, can. 2, speaks explicitly of the ostiarius.

In the East, the Constitutiones Apostolicae (l. 2, c. 23, 3; c. 28, 5) and other documents (Council of Laodicea [a. 371], can. 24; Justinian, Novell., 3, 1 [a. 535]; Council in Trullo [a. 692], can. 4) mention the ostiarius (πυλωρός, θυρωρός), whose office, however, is generally regarded as non-hierarchical.

II. ORDINATION

In the Roman Church, no formula for the ordination of doorkeepers appears until the ninth century. Some maintain that the pope privately designated the persons elected to this office.

The Statuta Ecclesiae antiqua (fifth century, originating in southern Gaul) present the first outline of the Ordination (PL 56, 879 ff.), which substantially passed into the Western liturgical books and into the Epistola de septem gradibus (PL 83, 895), falsely attributed to s. Isidoro and inserted into the Decretum of Gratian (1, D. 25).

According to the Roman Pontifical, the Ordination of the doorkeeper is performed with a very simple rite comprising the admonitio, the handing over of the instruments, the keys, and the blessing. The porrectio instrumentorum is accompanied by the formula: « Sic agite, quasi reddituri Deo rationem pro his rebus, quae his clavibus recluduntur », which is already found in the Statuta Ecclesiae antiqua.

III. FUNCTIONS

The duties of the doorkeeper were explained “mystically” by Pseudo-Jerome (De septem ordinibus Ecclesiae, 2: PL 30, 152) and are presently specified in the bishop’s admonitio: “Ostiarium oportet percutere cymbalum et campanam, aperire ecclesiam et sacrarium et librum aperire ei, qui praedicat.” The first function was certainly the one now mentioned second: to open and close the doors of the church and the sacrarium. As custodians of the latter place, doorkeepers in ancient times were elderly and trustworthy persons, to whom the Church’s Treasury could be entrusted. When, around the 5th and 6th centuries, the use of bells and other instruments was introduced, the doorkeepers were entrusted with summoning the Christian community for the Divine Offices. The function of opening the book for the preacher is mentioned for the first time in the Romano-Germanic Pontifical of the 10th century.