A churched person is a full member of the Orthodox Church who attends church services at least once a month, regularly confesses, takes communion, observes all church regulations, fasts and takes part in events related to the life of the Church (religious processions, etc.). Churched people are also people who are forced or voluntarily living in places remote from Orthodox churches and for this reason are deprived of the opportunity to regularly attend services and take part in the Sacraments, but who adhere to the Orthodox Christian worldview.
What is the Church
What does churched mean? Let's look for the answer to this question together. Churching takes place during the Sacrament of Baptism. This rite symbolizes the dedication of the baby to God. But this word can be understood in another way. Its root is the word Church, the Body of Christ, the union of all Christians of one denomination. That is, churching is the entry of a baby into the composition of this Body, its joining to a large common Soul - the Church. Such unity presupposes a common understanding of the foundations of faith, prayer life, and observed rules.
Story
Jewish practice was based on the book of Leviticus (Lev. 12:1-8), which describes a ceremonial rite that must be performed in order to restore a woman's ritual purity. It was believed that a woman in labor remained unclean due to the loss of blood or other fluids during childbirth. This rite was part of a ceremony, not a moral law.
The custom of blessing a woman after childbirth is based on the description of the purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, mentioned in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 2:22): “And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were fulfilled, they brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him before the Lord, as prescribed in law of the Lord, that every male child who opens the womb should be dedicated to the Lord.” The bringing of the baby Jesus Christ to the Jerusalem Temple by his parents took place on the 40th day after Christmas and on the 32nd day after Circumcision. In the Catholic Church, the rite of churching was excluded from practice in the 1960s after the decisions of the Second Vatican Council. In the Anglican Church, the rite of “churching women” is still used today. In the Episcopal Church, the rite of “churching women” after childbirth is combined with the presentation of the child to the church community.
Girl in Church
A churched girl should strive to become a model of chastity, decency, and politeness. By doing this, she indirectly preaches to the unbelieving people around her. She most often does not use makeup and tries to look neat. Clothes imply modesty, taste, moderation, and the absence of any pretentiousness or vulgarity. It’s good if she is always dressed so that she can safely enter the temple. Sometimes such a desire arises spontaneously. You don't have to dress in all black and shapeless clothes. But you need to try not to confuse the people present at the church service with your appearance. Girls usually have more free time than married women, so they often become members of charitable organizations and volunteers.
What unites people in the Church
A churchgoer is an Orthodox Christian who considers himself part of the Church, and her as his life, and strives to live according to the New Testament commandments. He can be a businessman, an athlete, the father of a large family, but he always puts faith in Christ at the forefront. Participation in services and sacraments is a necessity for him. He must understand the meaning of what is happening in the temple during the service. The majority of churchgoers observe the fasts established by the Orthodox Church, consider it necessary to read certain literature, and know and read the morning and evening prayers of the Orthodox Prayer Book every day. A believer is necessarily familiar with the feeling of spiritual unity with other members of the Church. On holidays it is especially acute. People are united by the desire to share joy and everything that fills the soul.
Lifestyle
Churching is a very broad concept, which many associate with the fact that a person feels confident in church, knows where to light a candle for health and where for peace, and distinguishes an archpriest from a chandelier. It turns out that the majority considers becoming a church member to be mastering the rules of church etiquette and knowing the course of worship. I will immediately note that, unfortunately, many people who consider themselves churchgoers neglect these rules, for some reason believing that they are not for them, but for “outsiders.” But this is not the main thing.
It is important to understand that churching is not only knowledge of the course of services and the ability to behave during them, it is a way of life. We show what kind of Christians we are, not at the liturgy, not in the church, but outside it. Alas, often people who consider themselves churchgoers demonstrate ignorance in everyday life. For example, they allow themselves to address strangers as “you”, justifying themselves by the fact that they are addressing God Himself this way - so why should ordinary people “cast off”? They are comfortable with disrespect and bad manners.
A truly churched person is not one who knows what and why is happening in the church, who observes all church regulations and was brought up in the church tradition of the parish or deanery in which he lives. Churching is impossible without ordinary human upbringing. You need to try to become a person that others can look up to. A churchgoer will not be rude, will not send a sparkling postcard to fellow believers at three in the morning, will not curry favor with the priest and will not be rude to “ordinary” people. His goodwill extends to everyone, not just to the parishioners of his temple. He tries to see Christ in everyone he meets.
How to Church Another Person
What does it mean to church a person? If we return to the symbolic meaning of the word “churching,” it means introducing a person into the Church. Not just to take him by the hand and lead him to all the “strong” icons and relics, not to hand him a Prayer Book, but to help him truly feel the unity of all believers - living and deceased. He must see that the Church is a real family. The word “church” cannot be understood as a building for worship. A person who does not communicate with anyone in church may actually be a member of the Church, and one who shakes hands with all the parishioners and the clergy may turn out to be a stranger to Her. That is, to become a church member means to give an understanding of the basics of Orthodox dogma, to help one take the first steps in a new life and to master the basic church institutions and rules of conduct in church. This should be done by a priest or a person with special spiritual education. If a simple parishioner undertakes to church another person, he must consult with a priest. He will competently tell you how to do it correctly, what literature to read.
Not the result, but the path
Being churched is not a fait accompli, not a point at which you can stop working on yourself. This is the path of a lifetime. Every day, from waking up to going to bed, we must confirm that we are Orthodox Christians. A change of mind, or metanoia, which has once occurred in us, requires work on oneself. Are we ready to live up to the high calling of a Christian? Will we behave with dignity not only among people like us, but also among those who do not know us, who, looking at us, will decide whether to go to church or not? This is what a church-going Christian should be concerned about. Unfortunately, many believers behave inappropriately both outside the church and even in it, considering themselves a head (or even two) above the rest. But a Christian is not one who has become a church member himself, but one who looks at whom others want to become a church member.
I think I’m not the only one who notices that people who consider themselves “spiritual” have a lot of pride. As a rule, their spiritual life is separated from their everyday life, but this does not happen. How often do people pursue an unhealthy spirituality that borders on mysticism! But this is false spirituality that must be resisted.
I also noticed that people who consider themselves churchgoers either stop reading the Gospel - because they have known everything about it for a long time - or read it as addressed to others. They do not fulfill the commandments, but they monitor whether those around them observe them.
The Gospel and the works of the Holy Fathers - the ABC of the Orthodox Church
A churchgoer is a Christian who firmly knows the basic gospel commandments and is familiar with the content of the teachings of the Holy Fathers of the Church. A prerequisite is not only to know by heart, but to clearly understand and confirm with your whole life the content of the text of the Creed. The beginning of getting to know the Church should be reading and carefully studying the New Testament. It is good if a priest or a believer who carefully studies it himself can help with this. But, unfortunately, now it is almost impossible to find a leader in spiritual life. Therefore, we need to resort to prayer and the help of the Holy Fathers. Then God himself becomes the leader on this important path. A beginner can start with the book: “Philokalia. Favorites for the laity."
Why the Holy Fathers? You need to try to imagine that a person is skiing through an unfamiliar forest. In front of it is an excellent ski track, and nearby there are numerous powdery branches. What would a reasonable person choose? A good ski track is the path paved by the Holy Fathers. It’s as if they are calling us from the other end of the forest and saying: “Son, follow in my footsteps, I have safely reached my goal.” Each of them walked this path and carefully fixed the ski track. A smart person, of course, will boldly follow the ski track, a fool will begin to look for his own, new path and will certainly pay for his arrogance by soon getting lost.
But in order to correctly understand the patristic works, you also need an assistant. Abbot Nikon (Vorobiev) expounded their teaching in a language understandable to modern man. His book “Letters on Spiritual Life” contains correspondence with his spiritual children, which outlines at an everyday level how to understand and apply patristic teaching in practice. A little more complexly, in the magnificent language of the 19th century, this teaching is expounded in the works of St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov). Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy A.I. Osipov explains the works of the Holy Fathers and the Gospel commandments for modern man in a very simple and understandable way. You can get acquainted with his understanding on his personal website. What does a church-going person mean? This is someone who shares the views of the faithful children of the Church on the foundations of Orthodoxy, loves and respects it, and believes in the truth of its teaching.
Family and Church
It is much easier for a believer to lead a spiritual life if all members of his family consciously believe in God and feel the need for church fellowship. A church-going family is formed when two believers create a couple. Less often, a believing husband or believing wife manages to attract their significant other to the Church.
In every church-going family, children are certainly raised in the Orthodox faith. The norm is common morning and evening prayer with the whole family, reading the lives of saints at the dinner table and, of course, regular general attendance at divine services and participation in the Sacraments. All this contributes to the strengthening of the faith of each family member individually. A churchgoer understands this and makes sure that all his relatives strive for spiritual life.
Who can be considered a churchgoer?
About whom can we say that he lives a real church life? And what can be considered a kind of under-church and personal under-Christianity?
Communion. Photo: A. Goryainov / Expo.Pravoslavie.Ru
As long as a person in a relationship with God seeks only his own, he is a “sub-Christian”
Priest Alexander Dyachenko:
“I remember,” one young woman told me, how she once, while in the regional center, went into the cathedral on a weekday. Almost no people. I took a few candles and went to pray.
Having prayed, she headed towards the exit, and at that moment one of the local grandmothers called out to her and sympathetically asked:
- What, did you quit?
- Who? Husband? No, everything is okay.
- Then what, is he walking?
- Where did you get this from? No, he doesn't walk.
Priest Alexander Dyachenko - Are you sick yourself? Or children?
- Thank God, like everyone else.
– So, maybe you’re having trouble at work? – the old woman is perplexed.
The woman laughs:
- It's okay, grandma.
“Then I can’t for the life of me understand what you’re doing here, why you came to the temple.”
Real conversation, but it sounds like a joke. This happens when a person goes to church because he needs to solve his problems. Now he will light a candle for God, cross his forehead - the Lord will help.
So, as long as a person in a relationship with God seeks only his own, he is, as you say, a “sub-Christian.” The Christian seeks God Himself. Whether it will be convenient for him to walk with Him through life or not, whether he will have enough to eat or go hungry, is not the main question for him.
“You must be born again” (John 3:7), says the Lord to Nicodemus, and this cannot be done without repentance. A person will get down from the pedestal of the monument to his own pride, will kneel before Christ, then he will no longer be torn away from the temple, from Communion. If they beat him with sticks, he will go anyway.
A Christian’s involvement in the Church is determined by the measure of real adherence to the Savior’s commandments
Priest Dimitry Vydumkin:
Priest Dimitry Vydumkin - I think that when thinking about these issues, we should least of all rely on certain external criteria. For do we have a clearly formulated and completely clear answer to the question: “what is churchliness”? And can we somehow describe authentic church life without being captured by the limitations of our own ideas?
By answering these questions, we can only try to direct the thought of the person for whom the answers are intended in the right direction. For me personally, this direction was set by one experienced spiritual father back in my youth. Then, I remember, he told me: “If you want to understand how deeply you are in the Church, listen to your heart after you happen to suddenly miss the Sunday Liturgy. If at the same time there is a melancholy in your heart that will not leave you throughout the day, then you are a living member of it. If for your inner world this event passes almost unnoticed and you have not felt any grief, then in reality you are still only standing at its gates, like a catechumen, and you have yet to truly enter into it.”
If your heart yearns without the Liturgy, then you are a living member of the Church
This first criterion, as we see, is deeply personal. Only the person himself, having listened to his heart, can try to understand how “implanted” (I don’t like the word “integrated”) he is into the life of the Church. But from the outside we are not able to understand this.
We could look for another criterion in the area of the non-ritual life of a Christian. Church worship and the Sacraments for our moral life are a school of piety. Church texts, containing either passages from the Holy Scriptures, or a poetic interpretation of them, or examples of the embodiment of the Gospel in the lives of saints, build a coordinate system for us. To the extent that a Christian has accepted this system of coordinates, to the extent that he is faithful in life to the ideals that the Church glorifies in Her worship, to the extent that he is ecclesiastical. The entire life of the Church is built around the commandments of the Savior. And a Christian’s involvement with the Church and true Christianity in general is determined only by the measure of his real adherence to these same commandments.
The most important criterion for churching is the presence of a peaceful spirit, the spirit of Christ
Priest Dimitry Shishkin:
Priest Dimitry Shishkin - Still, the first thing that comes to mind is the fulfillment of some simple but mandatory rules of church life, known to all more or less churchgoers. That is, attendance at the evening service on Saturday or on the eve of a holiday, as well as at the Liturgy on Sunday at least once a month. Moreover, the presence is not for five to ten minutes, but as expected - from the beginning to the end of the service. Of course, if there are no objective obstacles. This is important because there are illnesses, the lack of a temple within actual accessibility, and different weather (natural) circumstances, etc. But in the absence of all these conflicts, visiting church and services every week is normal.
Further, of course, participation in the Sacraments of Confession and Communion at least several times a year must be recognized as a criterion for being a church member. Previously, they talked about the need for Communion during every multi-day fast, of which, let me remind you, we have four. But now (and this is encouraging) most parishioners try to take communion more often, at least once a month. And this is good.
In addition, it is necessary to say about the house rule, that is, about some minimum requirements for performing morning and evening prayers, prayers before and after meals, before work and after work. Reading the Holy Scriptures, and especially the New Testament, can also be called a mandatory norm for a churchgoer.
A mandatory norm for a churchgoer is reading the Holy Scriptures, especially the New Testament
The frequency may vary: every day, once every two to three days or once a week, depending on the circumstances, but consistency is the norm. Some will say: rigorism and scolding! Not at all - an ordinary Christian way of life.
But that's not all. The most important criterion for becoming a church member is the presence of a peaceful spirit, the spirit of Christ. The Apostle says: “Whoever does not have the spirit of Christ is not His” (Rom. 8:9). And one of the main signs, so to speak, of the spirit of Christ is severity towards oneself and condescension towards others. Not indulgence in sins and not justifying lies, but precisely a compassionate and spiritual attitude towards man as the highest creation of God, called to salvation. It seems to me that this is important: when fulfilling all the rules that we talk about and which are really necessary, do not forget that our goal is to acquire the spirit of Christ, to become like Christ, to put on Him. This, in the proper sense of the word, is churching, because the Church is the body of Christ.
As for what can be considered under-church and under-Christianity... I would refrain from using these terms, if only because throughout the history of the life of the Church, through the mouths of countless holy fathers, a variety of subtleties and nuances of church life were specified and the names of all important for our salvation of states, concepts and relationships. As far as I know, among these terms there are no words “under-churchedness” and “under-Christianity,” partly, perhaps, because the essence of human life, especially in its spiritual dimension, is known only by the Lord Himself, and it is easy for us to make the mistake of judging a person only by what - external signs, without knowing the content of the life of his heart and the circumstances of life in general. But this, of course, does not mean that we ourselves have the right to neglect those criteria of church life that we spoke about above.
It is impossible to live a real church life in isolation, apart from the community
Priest Sergius Begiyan:
Priest Sergius Begiyan - This question is not at all as simple as it seems. There is no doubt that living a real church life is the ideal of every believer. I would probably answer this question differently over the years. Today I can say this: it is impossible to live a real church life in isolation, apart from the community. True church life is communal, united in spirit. Where there is no such common principle, there is little churchliness in the high sense of the word.
You can go to services, participate in the Sacraments, that is, try to realize your individual Christianity, but it is difficult to fulfill the commandments alone. It is impossible to humble yourself when there is no one who humbles you; it is impossible to console when there is no one crying, etc. These are simple, crude examples, but that's the gist of it. Christianity is realized through a double sacrifice - to God and to one's neighbor. The church community helps to improve both the first and second.
If the community is strong, then the parish is truly like a ship sailing on the sea of life. If the community is divided into many praying acquaintances (as is the case almost everywhere), then we cross the sea in a kayak. Maybe, of course, you’ll be lucky and you’ll swim across. Or maybe not.
Christianity is realized through a double sacrifice - to God and to neighbor
Under-churching is when a person only takes from the church: Sacraments, grace, prayers, etc., but he himself gives nothing, never asks how to help. Maybe it’s just that there’s no one to clean up after the service. Being under-churched is also superficially going to services without trying to understand something, to become closer to God, going to church out of tradition or inertia.
Under-Christianity is a kind of inertia, an unwillingness to work on oneself. A person goes to church, but no longer thinks about his correction, and his brain is already working on how to correct his children, grandchildren, husband, etc. Sub-Christianity is the Old Testament. When you read, you read: “do not steal,” “do not commit adultery,” “honor your father and mother,” and so on, but you didn’t finish reading “blessed are those who mourn.” And so he remained a Christian Pharisee, honoring his peace and comfort above all else and responding to any accusation: “I thank you, God, that I, not like other people, fast twice a week,” etc.
Sub-Christianity is the complacent thought of oneself as having “achieved” and having “guarantees of salvation.”
Christ came to bring down fire (cf. Luke 12:49) of Divine love. And he wants this fire to consume us and from love for Him we would ascend to ever greater feats. This fire does not allow the soul to rest on what has been achieved (since, in essence, we achieve nothing), but all the time pushes us forward, as the Apostle Paul says: “Brethren, I do not consider myself to have achieved; But only, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13-14).
Therefore, to put it briefly, sub-Christianity means calmly considering oneself as having “achieved” and having “Orthodox guarantees of salvation,” and not crucifying the world every day in the “pangs of birth.”
For a churchgoer, joy is the joy of the Church
Priest Valery Dukhanin:
Priest Valery Dukhanin - Churching is determined according to a fairly clear criterion. A churched person is a person who cannot live without the Church. He is drawn to the temple, in the temple his soul blossoms, rejoices, and is filled with life. Without worship and the Sacraments, he suffocates and fades away. He, of course, can skip the prayer rule due to fatigue, but he still cannot do without prayer.
Therefore, to the extent that the life of the Church has become the life of your soul, to that extent you are a child of the Church. To the extent that you thirst for communion with the Lord in the Sacraments and divine services, God’s grace purifies you. But if you are not drawn to church, if you think that it is better to go to a hypermarket instead of the all-night vigil, and to sleep off the Liturgy instead, then what kind of church involvement are you?
For a churchgoer, the joys of the Church are: Christmas, the Resurrection of the Lord, the sending of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles. He experiences these events as a participant in the Gospel, and perceives with his very heart the events from the life of the Lord as relevant to each of us. He lives by the fasts and holidays of the church year, and worldly holidays recede into the background.
An important criterion for becoming a church member is how merciful your soul has become towards your neighbors.
And I’ll also add that an important criterion for becoming a church member is how merciful your soul has become towards your neighbors. After all, when the grace of Christ touches the heart, something pure and good shines inside, nothing oppresses such a soul, and it treats others with joy and love. If you go to church and immediately rudely pull back those standing next to you, if you provoke conflict with someone everywhere, then it means that you have not yet received the peaceful and loving spirit from the Church, and you still have something to work on. Each of us has our own degree of under-churching. But an amazing path opens up for everyone - to receive from the Mother Church the untold spiritual gifts that console, strengthen, delight and impart the grace of the Holy Spirit.
