About the cathedral sacristy
A sacristy (from the Latin sacer, “holy”, hence sacristia) is a room attached to a church in which everything needed for the Holy Mass is kept: the liturgical vestments and the sacred vessels. The sacristy serves above all as the place where the clergy and the altar servers prepare before and after the liturgy.
The office of sacristan
The sacristy is usually looked after by a layman, the person we call the sacristan, who assists in the church and with other work besides. In a broader sense, under the direction of the parish priest he cares for everything that concerns the church. Because the office matters so much, such a person may today be thought of as a kind of “parish assistant”, since he is always at the parish priest’s side and is the first and often the most important source of information on everything to do with the life of faith and its celebrations. In some places religious sisters carry out this service; most often it is the lay faithful.