page_title: Churching of women
section_title: Customs
hierarchical_section_title: Churching of women / In the West / Customs
caption_attribution_description: Norsk nynorsk: Påskrift på kyrkjebenk brukt til inngangskoner og dåpsfylgje i Mariager kyrkje i Danmark English: Inscription om church bench used for churching of women and families of the baptismal candidates in Mariager church, Denmark. Inscription says: For baptism of children and churching of women
context_page_description: In Christian tradition the Churching of Women is the ceremony wherein a blessing is given to mothers after recovery from childbirth. The ceremony includes thanksgiving for the woman's survival of childbirth, and is performed even when the child is stillborn, or has died unbaptized.
  Although the ceremony itself contains no elements of ritual purification, it was related to Jewish practice as noted in Leviticus 12:2-8, where women were purified after giving birth. In light of the New Testament, the Christian ritual draws on the imagery and symbolism of the presentation of Jesus at the Temple
  . Although some Christian traditions consider Mary to have borne Christ without incurring impurity, she went to the Temple in Jerusalem to fulfil the requirements of the Law of Moses.
  The rite is first mentioned in pseudo-Nicene Arabic canon law. The religious ceremony continues in Eastern Christianity, and the Lutheran Churches and the Anglican Communion offer the rite; but in the Roman Rite, it is found only in the pre-Vatican II form and in Anglican Ordinariate parishes.
context_section_description: Custom differs, but the usual date of churching was the fortieth day after confinement (or giving birth), in accordance with the Biblical date and Jewish practice. The Purification of Mary and the presentation of Jesus at the Temple are commemorated forty days after Christmas.
  The service included in the English Book of Common Prayer dates only from the Middle Ages. While the churching was normally performed by a priest in the parish church there were exceptions of women being churched at home. 
  Prior to the English Reformation, according to the rubric the woman was to occupy the "convenient place" near the narthex. In the first prayer book of Edward VI of England, she was to be "nigh unto the quire door". In the second of his books, she was to be "nigh unto the place where the Table (or altar) standeth". Bishop Matthew Wren orders for the diocese of Norwich in 1636 were that women to be churched would come and kneel at a side near the communion table outside the rail, being veiled according to custom, and not covered with a hat. In some parishes there was a special pew known as the "churching seat". Conducting the ritual inside the church rather than on the porch is an outward sign that ritual impurity of a childbearing woman was no longer presumed.
  Churchings were formerly registered in some parishes. In Herefordshire it was not considered proper for the husband to appear in church at the service, or to sit with his wife in the same pew. The words in the rubric requiring the woman to come "decently apparelled", refer to the times when it was thought unbecoming for a woman to come to the service with the elaborate head-dress then the fashion. A veil was usually worn. In some parishes a special veil was provided by the church, for an inventory of goods belonging to St Benet Gracechurch in 1560 includes "a churching cloth, fringed, white damask."
  In pre-Reformation days, it was the custom in Catholic England for women to carry lighted tapers when being churched, an allusion to the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin (February 2), and also celebrated as Candlemas, the day chosen by the Catholic Church for the blessing of the candles for the whole year. At her churching, a woman was expected to make some votive offering to the church, such as the chrisom or alb placed on the child at its christening.
  Augustine Schulte described the ceremony in the early twentieth century: The mother, kneels in the vestibule, or within the church, carrying a lighted candle. The priest, vested in surplice and white stole, sprinkles her with holy water in the form of a cross. Having recited Psalm 24, "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof", he offers her the left extremity of the stole and leads her into the church, saying: "Enter thou into the temple of God, adore the Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary who has given thee fruitfulness of offspring." She advances to one of the altars and kneels before it, whilst the priest, turned towards her, recites the appropriate blessing, and then, having sprinkled her again with holy water in the form of the cross, dismisses her, saying: "The peace and blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, descend upon thee, and remain forever. Amen."  The fact that the priest goes to meet her and escort her into the church is in itself a mark of respect for the mother.
  It was formerly regarded as unwise for a woman to leave her house to go out at all after confinement until she went to be churched. In Anglo-Irish folk tradition, new mothers who had yet to be churched were regarded as attractive to the fairies, and so in danger of being kidnapped by them. However, the origin of the church ritual is unrelated to these later local superstitions, which accrued to it.
caption: inscription on bench used for churching women, Mariager church, Denmark
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