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Churching of Women

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Origin 600 to 1970 CE

A rite of blessing and thanksgiving for a mother after childbirth, on her first return to church, echoing Mary's presentation in the temple forty days after the Nativity. Once near-universal in Western Christianity and in the Orthodox East (where a fortieth-day churching of mother and child is still kept), it has largely fallen out of Western use in the past century, partly because it came to be read as a purification implying that childbirth needed cleansing.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
600 to 1970 CE 1
Origin Period
Largely disused since the 1960s 1
Place of Origin
The Byzantine Empire and medieval Western Europe 1
Historical Origin
Rooted in the Levitical laws of ritual purification following childbirth, adapted by the medieval and early modern church into a rite of thanksgiving performed when a new mother returned to church after a period of confinement. 2
Practice
Who Performs It
Clergy or ordained officiants 1
Obligation
Optional and voluntary 1Tradition: Christianity
Optional: once near-universal in the West, and now rarely used
Frequency
Once, or at a turning point in a life 1
Solitary or Communal
Performed by an officiant for a recipient 1
Text
Source Text
The Book of Common Prayer includes an order titled The Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth, the Anglican liturgical form of the churching rite in which a mother gives thanks in church some weeks after giving birth. 3
Meaning
Literal Meaning
Names the traditional Christian rite of thanksgiving for a woman's recovery after childbirth, at which she is formally welcomed back into public worship following a period of ritual seclusion. 3
Attributions
Purpose
The churching of women is a traditional Christian rite of blessing and thanksgiving for a mother after childbirth, historically marking her formal return to church attendance, and it survives today mainly within Orthodox practice. 4
Function
Stage of Life Marked
Birth and the newborn 1
Learn More
Thanksgiving After Childbirth

The Churching of Women is a rite of blessing and thanksgiving for a mother after childbirth, marking her first return to church following the birth. It draws on the biblical account of the purification of Mary and the presentation of the infant Jesus in the Temple forty days after his birth, and behind that on the purification laws of Leviticus, though the Christian rite came to be understood primarily as thanksgiving for a safe delivery rather than as a cleansing from impurity.

Widely observed in the medieval and early modern West and long a familiar feature of English parish life, the Book of Common Prayer provided an order for the Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth, it has largely fallen out of use in the modern period, as unease grew over any implication that childbirth left a woman in need of purification. Where it survives, and in the parallel blessings of some Eastern churches, it is framed as gratitude for the child and the mother's safe passage through the danger of birth.

A Levitical Root, and a Rite Many Quietly Set Aside

The custom's deepest root lies in the purification law of Leviticus, which prescribes a fixed period of ritual impurity for a mother following childbirth before she may again enter the sanctuary, the same law the Gospel of Luke depicts Mary herself observing when she is presented at the Temple forty days after the Nativity together with the customary offering, a scene Western liturgical tradition has long read as the direct scriptural model behind the later Christian churching rite.

For much of Western and Orthodox Christian history this rite of blessing on a mother's first return to church after birth was close to universal practice rather than an optional custom, performed as a matter of course rather than something a family had to specifically request. Its prominence declined substantially over the twentieth century, and in many communities the rite has been quietly discontinued, folded into a more general postpartum blessing, or reframed explicitly as thanksgiving alone with any suggestion that childbirth itself required ritual purification deliberately set aside, a shift widely connected to discomfort, including feminist theological critique, with a rite whose Levitical origins could be read as treating the ordinary act of giving birth as a source of impurity requiring cleansing rather than purely as an occasion for gratitude, even though many of the churches that retained some version of the practice never framed it in exactly those terms themselves.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Belongs to Tradition

Anglican Communion, Denominations

Kept across the provinces of the Anglican Communion. The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, commonly called the Churching of Women, is a service of the Prayer Book.

Anglicanism, Denominations

The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, commonly called the Churching of Women, is a service of the Prayer Book.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings
Christianity, Religions
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Church of Cyprus, Denominations

Kept in the Church of Cyprus, autocephalous since the Council of Ephesus in 431. The churching of a mother and the presentation of a child on the fortieth day is kept as a living rite here, not as a survival.

Church of England, Denominations

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, commonly called the Churching of Women, is a service of the Prayer Book.

Church of Greece, Denominations

Kept in the Church of Greece. The churching of a mother and the presentation of a child on the fortieth day is kept as a living rite here, not as a survival.

Church of Ireland, Denominations

Kept in the Church of Ireland. The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, commonly called the Churching of Women, is a service of the Prayer Book.

Church of Sweden, Denominations

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. The churching of a mother was retained in the Lutheran church orders of the sixteenth century, stripped of any suggestion that she needed purifying.

Eastern Orthodoxy, Denominations

The churching of a mother and the presentation of a child on the fortieth day is kept as a living rite here, not as a survival.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, Denominations

Kept in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the see of first honour among the Orthodox churches. The churching of a mother and the presentation of a child on the fortieth day is kept as a living rite here, not as a survival.

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Denominations

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The churching of a mother was retained in the Lutheran church orders of the sixteenth century, stripped of any suggestion that she needed purifying.

Georgian Orthodox Church, Denominations

Kept in the Georgian Orthodox Church, which has used its own language and script in worship since the fifth century. The churching of a mother and the presentation of a child on the fortieth day is kept as a living rite here, not as a survival.

Greek Orthodox Church, Denominations

Kept in the Greek Orthodox churches. The churching of a mother and the presentation of a child on the fortieth day is kept as a living rite here, not as a survival.

Lutheranism, Denominations

The churching of a mother was retained in the Lutheran church orders of the sixteenth century, stripped of any suggestion that she needed purifying.

Roman Catholicism, Denominations

The blessing of a mother after childbirth survives in the Roman ritual books as an optional rite, having been near universal in the West before the twentieth century.

Romanian Orthodox Church, Denominations

Kept in the Romanian Orthodox Church, the one Orthodox church of the Byzantine tradition whose language is Romance. The churching of a mother and the presentation of a child on the fortieth day is kept as a living rite here, not as a survival.

Russian Orthodox Church, Denominations

Kept in the Russian Orthodox Church, in the Slavonic recension of the Byzantine books. The churching of a mother and the presentation of a child on the fortieth day is kept as a living rite here, not as a survival.

Serbian Orthodox Church, Denominations

Kept in the Serbian Orthodox Church. The churching of a mother and the presentation of a child on the fortieth day is kept as a living rite here, not as a survival.

The Episcopal Church, Denominations

Kept in the Episcopal Church, whose own Prayer Book descends from the Scottish rather than the English line. The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, commonly called the Churching of Women, is a service of the Prayer Book.

Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Denominations

Kept in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The churching of a mother and the presentation of a child on the fortieth day is kept as a living rite here, not as a survival.

Conducted By

Priest, Religious Offices
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Priest, Religious Roles & Titles
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Related To

Mary, Figures

Churching of Women echoes Mary's presentation in the temple forty days after the Nativity.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Sources
1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, s.v. churching of womenView the Source
1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005Churching of women; the Prayer Book thanksgivingView the Source
2. The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)
Anonymous (multiple authors)The Hebrew Bible, Leviticus 12, on purification after childbirthView the Source
3. The Book of Common Prayer
Church of England; ed. Brian Cummings, Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2011View the Source
4. Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes
John Meyendorff, Fordham University Press, 1979View the Source
Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church
Isabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator), Houghton Mifflin, 1906View the Source
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