6th-7th century AD. A bronze belt tip, of rectangular-oval shield, decorated with the incised inscription '+SABASTI[A]NUS SERBI ECCLESIEONI+' which can be translated to 'SEBASTIAN ECCLESIASTIC SERVANT'; the edges of the plaque decorated with a double incision of lines and rows, the fastening iron pin which attached the belt to a strap (still visible"). See Reynolds, E.R., The ordinals of Christ from their origins to the twelfth century, Berlin, New York, 1978, for discussion.7 grams, 31mm (1 1/4"). Property of an Essex gentleman; formerly in the Miller collection 1990; accompanied by an old collector's ticket dated 10 March 1990. The structure of the ecclesiastical hierarchy reflected in the Ordinal of Christ in the fifth century Apophthegmata was within several centuries to become normative almost everywhere in the Eastern Church. In the early sixth-century Syrian and Byzantine Churches the same grades as those in the Apophthegmata were used, with the addition of a few higher episcopal grades. The patriarch of Antioch, Severus, for example, in one of his homilies spoke of the lector and psalmists, sub-deacon, deacon, presbyter, and the episcopal grades of bishop, archbishop, and patriarch. In the seventh-century Syrian Church the Apophthegmata was revised and augmented by the monastic historian 'Enânîsô' of Hadiab. In this work the deacon is called a servant. In the first of 'Enânîsôs Ordinals Christ as sub deacon is called a servant. We can presume, being the style of the belt tip similar to the ones found in Syria in 6th-7th century AD, that the belt was belonging to someone of these ecclesiastic ranks in the Syrian Church.