Female altar servers

The development of the ministry of altar server has a long history. By the early Middle Ages, some of these ministries were formalized under the term "minor orders" and (along with the diaconate) used as steps to priestly ordination. One of the minor orders was the office of acolyte. Altar servers are a substitute for an instituted acolyte.

In several though not all Christian Churches, women have traditionally been excluded from approaching the altar (located in the chancel) during the liturgy. Thus The Service Book of the Orthodox Church (English translation by Isabel Florence Hapgood) states that "no woman may enter the Sanctuary at any time". In the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, the former rule was: "women may not enter [the sanctuary] at all". The normative practice within the Lutheran Churches permits both males and females to serve as altar servers (acolytes).

This did not exclude women, especially in convents of nuns, from entering the altar area at other times, for cleaning.

In Eastern Churches, women are further restricted by not being allowed inside the altar area and in several traditions even within the church building during their monthly periods.

The decision on to whether to allow alter girls is dependant on the local Bishop of the Diocese in the Catholic Church.

Formerly, it was forbidden to have women serving near the altar or anywhere in the chancel (infra cancellos), that is, they were prohibited from entering the altar area behind the altar rails during the liturgy. Although in some nun convents, the (female) nuns did in fact serve within the chancel.

The first Pope to denounce the practice of alter girls was Pope Gelasius, in the late 5th century he wrote to the Bishops of Lucania ordering them to stop the practice. More than 800 years later Pope Innocent IV would likewise forbid the practice. Pope Benedict XIV wrote in the encyclical Allatae sunt, 26 July 1775, "Women should not dare to serve at the altar; they should be altogether refused this ministry", and stating it was an “evil practice”, a reaffirmation of the earlier teaching of Gelasius and Innocent.

With the practice of private Masses (Mass by a priest and one other person, usually offered for a deceased person), scandal was often seen as a reason not to have a woman or girl alone with a priest.