Churching

Churching, a very old custom of some branches of the Christian Church, and said to take its rise in the Jewish custom of the purification of women. By this custom women after childbirth come to church and take part in a special service, which in the English Church consists chiefly in a thanksgiving for their safe deliverance. In some places the opinion still prevails that a woman who goes abroad after childbirth without having been churched has no remedy against insult. The Greek Church makes the ceremony a presentation of the newly-born child to the church. The word is used also to denote the attendance at church after some important event of life. For instance a bride used to be churched after the marriage ceremony, and newly-elected municipal bodies were sometimes churched.