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A flabellum (plural flabella), in liturgical use, is a fan made of metal, leather, silk, parchment or feathers, intended to keep away insects from the Sacred Species and from the priest.^[1]

It was in use in the sacrifices of the heathens and in the Christian Church from very early days, for the Apostolic Constitutions, a work of the fourth century, state (VIII, 12): "Let two of the deacons, on each side of the altar, hold a fan, made up of thin membranes, or of the feathers of the peacock, or of fine cloth, and let them silently drive away the small animals that fly about, that they may not come near to the cups".

Pope Pius XII, is carried through St. Peter's Basilica on a sedia gestatoria with papal flabella on either side.

Flabella were originally used in the West as well as the East, but their use was discontinued in the Latin Church about the fourteenth century.

Apart from the foregoing liturgical uses, a flabellum, in the shape of a fan, later of an umbrella or canopy, was used as a mark of honour for bishops and princes.

Prior to Vatican II, two fans of this kind were used at the Vatican whenever the pope was carried in state on the sedia gestatoria to or from the altar or audience-chamber. Through the influence of Count Ditalmo di Brozza, the fans formerly used at the Vatican were, in 1902, presented to Mrs. Joseph Drexel of Philadelphia, U. S. A., by Pope Leo XIII, and in return she gave a new pair to the Vatican. The old ones are exhibited in the museum of the University of Pennsylvania. They are splendid creations. The spread is formed of great ostrich plumes tipped with peacock feathers; on the sticks are the papal arms, worked in a crimson field in heavy gold, the crown studded with rubies and emeralds.

In the Eastern Orthodox and Greek-Catholic Churches the sacred fan (Greek: άγιον ριπίδιον, hagion ripidion, plural: άγια ριπίδια, hagia ripidia; sometimes εξαπτέρυγον, hexapterygon, plural: εξαπτέρυγα hexapteryga—literally, "six-winged"), is still used to the present day. It is generally made of metal, round, having the iconographic likeness of a seraph with six wings surrounding a face, and is set on the end of a pole. Fans of carved, gilded, or painted wood are also found. They are usually made in pairs.

A deacon, at his ordination, receives the fan from the bishop and is then sent to stand behind the Holy Table (altar) to fan the Sacred Gifts by waving it gently over them from the time of the Offertory to the Communion—in the Liturgy of St. Basil he does this only during the Consecration. While this action of fanning is called for in the Service Books to this day, the deacon normally only does so on the day of his ordination.

Among the Greeks the fans will be carried during the Great Entrance and at all processions; among the Russians they will normally be used only when a bishop is serving, or to honor a particularly sacred icon or relic. When not being used, the fans are normally kept in stands behind the Holy Table (Altar).

Fans used by the Maronites, Oriental Orthodox and Assyrians are distinctive, having little hoops of metal or bells all around the circumference of the disks. At particularly solemn points of the liturgy, these are shaken gently to produce a tinkling and jingling sound, akin to the sound of multiple Sanctus bells.

Among the ornaments found belonging to the church of St. Riquier, in Ponthieu (813), there is a silver flabellum (Migne, P. L., CLXXIV, 1257), and for the chapel of Cisoin, near Lisle, another flabellum of silver is noted in the will of Everard (died 937), the founder of that abbey. When, in 1777, Martène wrote his "Voyage Littéraire", the Abbey of Tournus, on the Saône river in France, possessed an old flabellum, which had an ivory handle two feet long, and was beautifully carved; the two sides of the ivory circular disc were engraved with fourteen figures of saints. Pieces of this fan, dating from the eighth century, are in the Musée Cluny at Paris, and in the Collection Carrand.

Examples of the Eastern Christian style is also found in the Slavic ripidion of the thirteenth century, preserved at Moscow, and in the one shown in the Megaspileon monastery in Greece. On this latter disc are carved the Theotokos and Child and it is encircled by eight medallions containing the images of cherubim and of the Four Evangelists.

The inventory, taken in 1222, of the treasury of Salisbury, enumerates a silver fan and two of parchment.

The richest and most beautiful specimen is the flabellum of the thirteenth century in the Abbey of Kremsmünster in Upper Austria. It has the shape of a Greek cross and is ornamented with fretwork and the representation of the Resurrection of Christ.

St. Paul's Cathedral, London, had a fan made of peacock feathers, and York Cathedral's inventory mentions a silver handle of a fan, which was gilded and had upon it the enamelled picture of the bishop. Haymo (Hamo Hethe), Bishop of Rochester (died 1352), gave to his church a fan of silver with an ivory handle.

• Liturgical Fans used at Hierarchical celebration Russian Orthodox
• Liturgical Fans used in procession
• Liturgical Fans in place behind Holy Table
• Liturgical Fan presented to Deacon at Ordination

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.