Churching : purification and celebration



Until the discovery of such things as antibiotics and blood transfusions, childbirth was highly dangerous (and still is. In developing countries the equivalent of two jumbo jet loads of passengers die each day in childbirth. Imagine the fuss if two jumbo jets crashed every day, no-one would fly).

About a month after delivery, a mother, and her friends, would go to church in thanksgiving for having come safely through the hazards of childbirth. The baby, if it survived, would be brought along too for blessing. The child might be christened then, but more likely, would have been already baptized within days or even hours after birth.  

The priest would meet the woman at the church porch and say prayers over her as she knelt, to purify her of the contaminations of childbirth. Until the ceremony, she would be considered too polluted to enter a church. Thus cleansed, she would be allowed into the church for blessings and thanksgivings. Thereafter she would be deemed fit to return into society and work, and would also be available to her husband again.

Although dangerous in terms of thrombosis and embolism, her long lying in period gave the new mother a respite from work in the fields or other heavy work, and also time off from sexual intercourse. She had time to recover from pregnancy and labour. Sore perineums could heal, a healthy blood supply restored and breast feeding established, all in peace and quiet. Well, probably not total peace, as the woman’s friends would be in and out all day, keeping her company and helping her husband with the household chores. Or, more probably, doing the chores.

Some feminists regard the de-polluting aspects of the churching ceremony as yet another instance of the church’s suspicion and condemnation of sexually active women, and there is certainly truth in this. Purification ceremonies are still common in many countries. In the UK, however, although churching may still be performed in a modified format (being more of a blessing and thanksgiving rather than a purification), church-going women in the UK nowadays rarely bother.

This is in apparent contrast to the attitudes of medieval women. Evidently, they looked forward to the churching ceremony. It was a milestone in their lives, a ‘rite of passage’; a social occasion and, above all, a great celebration of life and survival.