Churching of women

In Christian tradition the churching of women, also known as thanksgiving for the birth or adoption of a child, 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.

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.

[4] Paul V. Marshall suggests that in an agricultural society this could have been a simple means of protecting a new mother from resuming work too soon after giving birth.

Historically, European women were confined to their beds or their homes for extensive periods after giving birth in a custom called lying-in; care was provided either by her female relatives (mother or mother-in-law) or by a temporary attendant known as a monthly nurse.

[6] The rite became the subject of a good deal of misunderstanding, since many commentators and preachers, in describing its scriptural antecedents, did not explain the concept clearly.

Pope Gregory I as early as the 6th century protested against any notion that defilement was incurred by childbirth and recommended that women should never be separated from the church in case it was seen as such.

[7] As a blessing given to mothers after recovery from childbirth, "it is not a precept, but a pious and praiseworthy custom, dating from the early Christian ages.

At the conclusion of a month after childbirth, women looked forward to churching as a social occasion, and a time to celebrate with friends.

[3] The concluding prayer reads: Almighty, everlasting God, through the delivery of the blessed Virgin Mary, Thou hast turned into joy the pains of the faithful in childbirth; look mercifully upon this Thy handmaid, coming in gladness to Thy temple to offer up her thanks: and grant that after this life, by the merits and intercession of the same blessed Mary, she may merit to arrive, together with her offspring, at the joys of everlasting happiness.

Dispose and enable the parents to give their child a Christian training, that so it may grow up to Thine honor and the joy of all true believers.

[17]The rite of the "Churching of Women" is offered in the Anglican Communion with a liturgy as part of the Book of Common Prayer.

The 1979 Book of Common Prayer, avoiding any hint of ritual impurity, replaces the older rite with "A Thanksgiving for the Birth or Adoption of a Child."

In this service, parents and other family members come to the church with the newly born or adopted child "to be welcomed by the congregation and to give thanks to Almighty God" (Book of Common Prayer, p. 439).

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.

[21] Augustine Schulte described the ceremony in the early twentieth century: The mother, kneels in the vestibule, or within the church, carrying a lighted candle.

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."

"[8] According to commentary provided in a modern Catholic tutorial on the mass, the fact that the priest goes to meet the mother and escort her into the church is in itself a mark of respect for her.

He then chants the Nunc dimittis and says a special apolysis (dismissal), after which he blesses the child with the Sign of the Cross on its forehead, mouth and heart, and returns it to its mother.