![]() Pope Francis changed canon law in January 2021 to allow female installed acolytes. Pope Benedict XVI spoke of Saint Tarcisius as "presumably an acolyte, that is, an altar server". Īs in other churches, in the Latin Church the term "acolyte" is also used of altar servers on whom no ordination or institution has been conferred. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal adds: "In the absence of an instituted acolyte, lay ministers may be deputed to serve at the altar and assist the priest and the deacon they may carry the cross, the candles, the thurible, the bread, the wine, and the water, and they may also be deputed to distribute Holy Communion as extraordinary ministers." However, some functions, in particular that of cleansing the Eucharistic vessels, are reserved for an instituted acolyte and are not entrusted to those deputed to assist in that way. 187-193), which he must perform personally." In the ministry of the altar, the acolyte has his own functions (cf. In particular, it is his responsibility to prepare the altar and the sacred vessels and, if it is necessary, as an extraordinary minister, to distribute the Eucharist to the faithful. 98, which under the heading, "The Ministry of the Instituted Acolyte and Lector", says: "The acolyte is instituted to serve at the altar and to assist the priest and deacon. The functions of the instituted acolyte are specified in the motu proprio, and have been indicated also in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. The motu proprio assigned to the instituted acolyte the functions previously reserved for the subdeacon, and declared national episcopal conferences free to use the term "subdeacon" in place of that of "acolyte". Institutions of acolytes not preparing for holy orders are in fact sometimes carried out. Ministries are conferred by the ordinary: either a bishop or the head of a similar territory or, in the case of clerical religious institutes, a major superior. The two instituted ministries are not reserved solely for candidates for holy orders. Candidates for diaconate and for priesthood must receive both ministries and exercise them for some time before receiving holy orders. A prescribed interval, as decided by the Holy See and the national episcopal conference, is to be observed between receiving the two. He kept throughout the Latin Church two now-titled instituted ministries, those of reader and acolyte. By his motu proprio Ministeria quaedam of 15 August 1972, Pope Paul VI replaced the term "minor orders" by that of "ministries" and the term "ordination" by "institution". Until 1972, the highest of the four minor orders in the Latin Church was that of acolyte. (This might be done if a reader must occasionally serve in the role of a subdeacon, or for some other reason the bishop believes is fitting.) If a server has not been tonsured, he must remove the sticharion before he can receive Holy Communion. In the Russian tradition, readers wear only the sticharion, and do not wear the orarion unless they have been specially blessed to by their bishop. Readers do not cross the orarion while wearing it, the uncrossed orarion being intended to slightly distinguish a reader from a subdeacon. ![]() In recent times, however, in many of the North American Greek Orthodox Churches, for the sake of uniformity, readers have been permitted to wear the orarion (the bishop presents the reader, who is to serve on the altar, with the orarion). Subdeacons wear their normal vestments consisting of the sticharion and crossed orarion readers and servers traditionally wear the sticharion alone. Also, the term "altar-boys" is often used to refer to young altar servers. ![]() The functions of an acolyte or taper-bearer are therefore carried out by readers, subdeacons, or by non-tonsured men or boys who are sometimes called "acolytes" informally. However, this rank has long ago been subsumed by that of the reader and the service for the tonsure of a reader begins with the setting-aside of a taper-bearer. ![]() At one time there was a rank of minor clergy called the taper-bearer (κηροφόρος) responsible for bearing lights during processions and liturgical entrances. In the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches, the nearest equivalent of acolyte is the altar server.
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