Lampadarios

A lampadarius, plural Lampadarii, from the Latin "lampada" , from Ancient Greek "lampas" λαμπάς (candle), was a slave who carried torches before consuls, emperors and other officials of high dignity both during the later Roman Republic and under the Empire. Lampadarios in the post-Byzantine period designates the leader of the second (left) choir of singers in the Eastern Orthodox church practice.

There seems no special reason to attribute to the lampadarii any ecclesiastical character, though their functions were imitated by the acolytes and other clerics who preceded the bishop or celebrant, carrying torches in their hands, in the solemn procession to the altar and in other processions.

There is very little evidence that any strictly liturgical use was made of lamps in the early centuries of Christianity. The fact that many of the services took place at night, and that after the lapse of a generation or two the meetings of the Christians for purposes of worship were held, at Rome and elsewhere, in the subterranean chambers of the Catacombs, make it clear that lamps must have been used to provide the necessary means of illumination. Of these lamps, mostly of terra cotta and of small size, many specimens survive some of them plain, some decorated with various Christian symbols.

These admit of classification according to period and locality, the finer work, as in so many other branches of Christian art, being as a rule the earlier (see e.g. Leclercq, "Manuel d'archeologie chretienne" II, 557 seq.). Of the great metal chandeliers with their "dolphins" —i.e. little arms wrought in that shape and supporting a lamp— which came into vogue with the freedom of the Church in the days of Constantine, something has already been said under the heading Candlesticks. Such "polycandela" long remained a conspicuous feature of Byzantine worship.

...
Wikipedia