The Cathari, it has to be remembered, were a church. They had an organization, held services with a certain very simple ritual, for example substituting for the mass a simple blessing of bread at table, the Catharan meal bearing a close resemblance to the early Christian ἀγάπη. Confessions were made to elders of the church once a month. But the most distinctive ceremony of the sect was the Consolamentum, an imposition of hands whereby the ordinary believer was admitted into the select ranks of the Perfected. The number of the latter was always small, and consisted principally of the avowed ministers of the faith. The Consolamentum, which meant re-entrance into communion with the spiritual world, was the desire of all true Cathari, but was apt to be postponed until late in life, often until the death-bed. The actual ritual of the Consolamentum—or hæretication, as Catholics termed it—was very brief. The candidate, after a series of genuflections and blessings, asked the minister to pray God that he might be made a good Christian.[40] Such prayer having been offered, the candidate was then asked if he was willing to abjure prohibited foods and unchastity, and to endure persecution if necessary. When the Consolamentum was given to a man on his death-bed, it was frequently followed by the Endura, which commonly took the form of suffocation or self-starvation. The Perfected consisted of four orders—bishop, filius major, filius minor, deacon—their duties being to preside at services and missionary work, in which the Cathari were zealous. Outside their ranks were the simple adherents, the Believers or, as they were sometimes called, Christians. These bound themselves eventually to receive the Consolamentum; but, generally speaking, they were under no obligations save to venerate the Perfected who, in the strictest sense, composed the true Catharan Church, and to live the pure life their faith enjoined. But they were under no coercive authority, and were even permitted to marry.