PASTOFORIO. – Hellenistic taste led the builders of Christian basilicas to conceal the rounded apse behind a straight wall; hence the creation, beside the sanctuary, of two more or less spacious rooms, which two passages of the Apostolic Constitutions (II, 57 and VIII, 13) designate by the name παστοφόρικ (from πάστος = cell; φόρτιο = to carry). This architectural type spread from Syria to the Christian basilicas of other regions, especially Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Ravenna.
Among the pagans, the word designated the niche or small shrine in which the Egyptian priests carried the image of the deity. It is generally said that the northern room was the prothesis, the place where the faithful deposited their offerings and where the priests prepared the elements for the Eucharistic sacrifice, while the southern one was the diaconicum, where liturgical vessels and vestments were kept. Recent archaeological investigations by J. Lassus, Sanctuaires chrétiens de Syrie. Essai sur la genèse, la forme et l'usage liturgique des édifices du culte chrétien, en Syrie, du IIIe siècle à la conquête musulmane (Paris 1947), however, have led to a partial revision of this overly simple conception. It is acknowledged that in the 4th century these two rooms in Syrian churches could have been used for various, not more precisely determined purposes; but in the 5th century one of them, generally the southern one, was given a new function that disrupted the symmetry of the building: it became a martyrion, where the relics of a saint were placed. Since the faithful wished to touch the reliquary and take oil from it, access to this p. was widened by means of an arch above the entrance. The other p., by contrast, provided access to the sanctuary through a small low door and could serve as a sacristy, receiving various names: diaconicum, gazophylakion, or skenophylakion (v. BASILICA; DIACONICOM).