OSTIARIATE. - The last in dignity of the minor orders, the first in conferral. It confers on the cleric the office of doorkeeper (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 last place. The Lib. Pont. (I, p. 55) recalls a Romanus ostiarius, a companion in martyrdom of St. Lawrence, and in the enumeration of the grades of the hierarchy made under Pope Gaius (ibid., p. 161) it replaces the ostiarius with the custos martyrum, whereas in the one drawn up under St. Sylvester it regularly mentions the ostiaries. St. Augustine speaks of the ostiariate (Confess., 6, 2: PL 32, 719), as does Pope St. Gelasius, incidentally in a letter of 494 (PL 59, 47), recalling that at Rome toward the end of the 5th century they were replaced by the mansionarii (v.) who were not part of the clergy; it is held, however, that the ostiariate remained in force as a simple hierarchical grade; an inscription from Tre-
(phot. Scavi della Soprintendenza di Ostia)
OSTIA - Christian oratory near the theater.
viri records an Ursatius ustiarius. A dozen ancient inscriptions contain the title of ostiarius (cf. Leclercq and E. Diehl, Inscript. lat. christ. veteres, Berlin 1925-31, see index, p. 374). The extensive epistolary 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]; Trullan Council [a. 692], can. 4), mention the ostiarius (πυλωρός, θυρωρός), whose office, however, is generally held not to be hierarchical.
II. ORDINATION
In the Roman Church down to the 9th century no formula for the ordination of ostiaries appears. Some hold that the pope designated in private form the persons chosen for this office.
The Statuta Ecclesiae antiqua (5th century, originating from southern Gaul) present the first outline of Ordination (PL 56, 879 ff.) which passed substantially into the Western liturgical books and into the Epistola de septem gradibus (PL 83, 895), falsely attributed to St. Isidore and inserted in Gratian's Decretum (1, D. 25).
According to the Roman Pontifical the Ordination of an ostiary is performed with a very sober rite, which comprises the admonitio, the handing over of the instruments, the keys, 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 currently designated 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 in second place: to open and close the doors of the church and of the sacrarium. As guardians of the latter place, doorkeepers, in ancient times, were elderly and trusted persons, to whom the treasury of the church could be entrusted. When, around the 5th and 6th centuries, the use of bells and other instruments was introduced, the doorkeepers were given the task of summoning the Christian community for the divine offices. The function of opening the book for the one who preaches is mentioned for the first time in the Roman-Germanic Pontifical of the 10th century.
Bibliography7 works
Antonio Piolanti