SACRISTY (Secretarium, Sacrarium, Salutatorium). - A room attached to the church, where the sacred ministers prepare and vest for the sacred functions and where the furnishings of worship are kept.
It contains distinct rooms or compartments: in cathedral churches, besides the ordinary and common sacristy, there is one proper to the canons; in small churches there is at least one set apart for the altar servers. In the sacristy, in a prominent place, there is the cross or a sacred icon, and the cabinet or table where the priests put on the sacred vestments; nearby, a cabinet for the chalices and the linen necessary for the celebration of Mass, and for the boxes of large and small hosts. There must be no lack of cabinets of sufficient size and number to hold the sacred vestments, the vestments of the altar servers, the missal, the liturgical books and the sacred furnishings. A washbasin with towels is prescribed, one for the exclusive use of the sacred ministers, before and after Holy Mass; the other for the use of other persons. There must also be found there a kneeler with the table of prayers for the preparation and thanksgiving for Mass, and a confessional for men and for persons with disabilities. Thus the sacristy is a necessary and integral part of the church.
The history of the sacristy begins with the construction of the church itself, as a place necessary for keeping the furnishings of worship. In the East and in the Syrian and Greek liturgy there were and there are, beside the apse, the two chambers called pastophoria (cf. Didac. Apost., II, 57, 3): the prothesis or πρασκογηδή, on the left, with the washbasin (τὸ λυκνυτήριον), and the diaconicon, on the right, with special cabinets for the sacred vessels and the liturgical books; into one of the pastophoria the Eucharist was carried, which was kept for the sick (cf. Const. Apost., VIII, 13, 17), just as in the West the Eucharist was kept in the sacristy during the Middle Ages until about the 14th century. The great basilicas of the West had the secretarium outside the church (in Rome to the left of the atrium), where the bishops went to be greeted by the clergy (St. Augustine, De civ. Dei, XXII, 8), for audiences or to prepare for the sacred functions (cf. Ord. Rom., II, 23, 29: ed. M. Andrieu, Les Ordres Romains du haut moyen âge, Louvain 1948, pp. 74, 76).
These secretaria were so spacious that synods could be held in them, as at Hippo in the "Basilica Pacis" in 393, or at Carthage in the "Basilica Fausti" in 418. But as a rule, outside these great basilicas, the sacristy was built less organically to the north or south of the choir, often behind the apse. In small churches, on the other hand, the modest furnishings were kept in cabinets placed behind or beside the altar; the priests put on and took off the vestments at the altar itself, not in the middle as bishops and prelates do, but on one side. In the sacristy, because of its particular function, silence must be observed.
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In the Constantinian basilicas the secretarium is found near the narthex (v.), where the pope put on the pontifical vestments for the celebration of solemn Masses; the same is observed in the minor basilicas, whereas in the Byzantine churches it was situated near the main apse, and in the Syrian ones there existed for this purpose two rooms (pastophoria) flanking the apse itself. To the secretarium was often joined the salutarium, where the bishop received the faithful and listened to their petitions: examples of these arrangements still exist at Rome (S. Maria in Cosmedin), at Ravenna (S. Giovanni Evangelista), at Constantinople (SS. Apostles). In later periods the sacristy is mostly placed at the rear of the church, adjacent or close to the presbytery; it forms a single room with a square or rectangular plan, exceptionally trapezoidal (cathedral of Siena); the vaults are covered with frescoes and the individual furnishings, especially lavabos and cupboards, take on artistic expression.
Particular importance in the architectural structure and in the decorative elements the sacristy sometimes displays in the Renaissance (S. Lorenzo in Florence, by Brunellesco; S. Marco in Venice, by G. Spavento; S. Biagio in Montepulciano, by A. da Sangallo the Elder). It is then that the use begins to spread in the major churches of two sacristies, one for the daily functions, and the other reserved for the Chapter or the canons, in which the relics and the Treasure are kept (S. Ambrogio in Milan, the Certosa of Pavia, the cathedrals of Asti, Chieri, Parma and Turin, the basilica of S. Francesco in Assisi; for S. Lorenzo in Florence the name of "new sacristy" given to Michelangelo's construction is improper, since it is instead a burial chapel). Sometimes there are three sacristies (cathedral of Perugia, where beside the main one there exist that of the canons and that of the archpriest); the Basilica of Loreto represents an example perhaps unique, with its two main sacristies and the four minor ones dedicated to the Evangelists, famous for the frescoes of Signorelli and Melozzo.
The movement of the Catholic Reform also brings about for the sacristy new tendencies more responsive to the needs of worship and to the liturgical prescriptions (v. the precise and detailed Istruzioni of St. Charles Borromeo). Beginning with the last decades of the 16th century the sacristy is in fact arranged according to more functional criteria in relation to the other rooms. At Rome in S. Maria in Vallicella and in S. Maria dei Monti it is separated from the nave by a vestibule communicating directly with the exterior and corresponding to the entire length of the church; in the Gesù, although it is adjacent to it, it does not communicate with it directly, but through intermediate rooms; also in the centrally planned churches (such as S. Agnese in Agone), arrangements are noted that are intended to ensure ease of circulation and convenience of access, while the dimensions increase to the point of sometimes seeming excessive (S. Andrea al Quirinale). The decorative richness of the Baroque also manifests itself in the sacristies, especially in southern Italy (S. Domenico Maggiore and S. Paolo Maggiore in Naples; Gesù in Palermo; abbey of Montecassino); characteristic in the 18th century is the sacristy of the Maddalena in Rome, where the architecture, the decoration and the furniture are conceived with such full unity as to make of it a magnificent example of rococo. But the 18th century generally adheres to less sumptuous and more rational forms, reconnecting the planimetric arrangement to the general scheme of the building, as in the sacristy of S. Agostino, erected by Vanvitelli with the collaboration of C. Murena, preceded by an anti-sacristy, and notable for elegance of proportions and clarity of architectural line. To the period immediately preceding Neoclassicism belongs the grandiose sacristy of the Vatican Basilica, the greatest example of its kind, conceived as a separate building, in which the minor rooms are grouped around the central octagon, the work of C. Marchionni. - See plate C.
