ACOLYTE, the highest of the four minor orders in the Ro man Church (Gr. ax6Xoveos, follower). The office is unknown in the Eastern Church, except among the Armenians who borrowed it from the West. Before the Council of Nicaea (325) it was only found at Rome and Carthage. In 251, Pope Cornelius, in a letter to Fabius of Antioch, mentions among the Roman clergy 42 acolytes, placing them next after the subdeacons (Eusebius, Hist. Ecc. vi. 43), giving no hint that the office was a new one. The Liber Pontificals says that Pope Victor (186-197) made sequentes cleros, a term which may possibly denote acolytes. While the office was well known in Rome, it was evidently not at first an order through which, as to-day, every candidate to the priesthood must pass. St. Cyprian of Carthage (200?-258) used acolytes to carry his letters, but this seems to be the only place in Africa where they were known. The Irish Church did not know them ; and in Spain the Council of Toledo (400) makes no mention of them. The Statuta Ecclesiae Antigua, a Gallican collection for the province of Arles, early 6th century, mentions the acolyte, but does not give, as for the other orders, any form of ordination. The Roman books are silent, and in the Leonine Sacramentary and the so-called Gelasian Mass-book there is the same silence, though one ms. of the loth century, given by Mura tori, contains a form of ordination of an acolyte. The office is often mentioned in the Ordines Romani, but only in Ordo VIII. (not earlier than 7th century) do we find a very simple form for admitting an acolyte to his office. The evidence available, there fore, indicates that the acolyte was only a local office, not a necessary step to sacred orders. In England, acolytes first occur, both as office and order, in the Pontifical attributed to Egbert of York (732-766) ; and Aelfric (1006) in both his pastoral epistle and canons mentions the acolyte. It would seem, then, that the acolyte became an order in the Gallican Church first, and after wards found its way as such into the Roman books before the fusion of the two rites under Charlemagne.
The duties of the acolyte, as given in the Roman Pontifical, are identical with those mentioned in the Statute Ecclesiae Antigua of Arles : "to carry the candlesticks, to light the lamps of the church, to administer wine and water for the Eucharist." The Ordines Romani divides the acolytes into Palatini, who served the pope at the Lateran palace, Stationarii, who served at churches where there was a "station," and Regionarii, or those attached directly to the regions; and gives us a glimpse of their duties. When the pope rode in procession to the station an acolyte walked before him, bearing the holy chrism ; and at the church seven acolytes with candles went before him to the altar, while two others, bearing the vessel that contained a conse crated Host, presented it for his adoration. At the communion the acolytes received in linen bags the consecrated Hosts to carry to the assisting priests. The official dress of the acolyte (Ordo V.) was a close-fitting linen garment (camisia), a napkin hanging from the left side, a white tunic, a stole (orarium) and a chasuble (planeta) which he took off when he sang on the steps of the ambo.
At the present day the duties of acolytes are now performed, almost everywhere, by laymen. The office has been revived un officially in the Church of England, as a result of the Tractarian movement.
See Morin, Commentarius in sacris Ecclesiae ordinationibus, ii. p. 209, iii. p. 152 (Antwerp, 1685) ; Martene, De Antiquis Ecclesiae riti bus, ii. pp. 47 and 86 (Antwerp, 1739) ; Mabillon, Musaeum ltalicum H. for the Ordines Romani; Muratori, Liturgia Romana Vetus; Cabrol, Dictionnaire d'archeologie chretienne et de liturgie, vol. i. col.