A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

XXXI. To conclude: they hold that such as have been admitted into holy orders may become laymen at pleasure. From whence it plainly appears that they do not allow the character of the priesthood to be indelible. To which it may be added, that they approve of the marriage of their priests, provided they enter into that state before their admission into holy orders, though they are never indulged in that respect after their ordination.

The patriarch of Constantinople assumes the honourable title of Universal or Œcumenical Patriarch. As he purchases his commission of the Grand Seignior, it may be easily supposed that he makes a tyrannical and simoniacal use of a privilege which he holds himself by simony. The patriarchs and bishops are always single men; but the priests (as observed before) are indulged in marriage before ordination; and this custom, which is generally practised all over the Levant, is very ancient. Should a priest happen to marry after ordination, he can officiate no longer as priest, which is conformable to the injunctions of the Council of Neocesarea. The marriage, however, is not looked upon as invalid; whereas, in the Romish Church, such marriages are pronounced void and of no effect, because the priesthood is looked upon as a lawful bar or impediment.—Broughton.

Their Pappas, or secular priests, not having any settled and competent livings, are obliged to subsist by simoniacal practices. “The clergy,” says Ricaut, “are almost compelled to sell those Divine mysteries which are intrusted to their care. No one, therefore, can procure absolution, be admitted to confession, have his children baptized, be married or divorced, or obtain an excommunication against his adversary, or the communion in time of sickness, without first paying down a valuable consideration. The priests too often make the best market they can, and fix a price on their spiritual commodities in proportion to the devotion or abilities of their respective customers.”

The national Church of the kingdom of Greece has lately been reconstructed similarly to that of Russia, by the establishment of a synod.—See King’s Rites of the Greek Church, and Cowel’s Account of the Greek Church, 1722.

CHURCH, ARCHITECTURE OF. There seems to be an absurdity in the modern practice of building churches for the ritual of the nineteenth century, on the model of churches designed for the ritual of the fourteenth century. And for a service such as ours, nothing more is required than a nave and a chancel; the only divisions which we find in the primitive Eastern churches. But as we have inherited churches which were erected during the middle ages, it is rather important that we should understand their designed arrangement. We find in such churches a nave (navis) with its aisles (alæ); a chancel; a tower, generally at the west end; and a porch, generally to the second bay of the south aisle. The uses of the nave and chancel are obvious; the aisles were added in almost all cases perhaps, prospectively at least in all, that they might serve for places for the erection of chantry altars, and for the same end served the transepts and chancel aisles, or side chapels, to the chancels, sometimes found even in small churches. To the chancel, generally at the north, a vestry was often attached; and this was sometimes enlarged into a habitation for the officiating priest, by the addition of an upper chamber, with fire-place and other conveniences. But the more frequent place for this domus inclusa was over the porch, when it is commonly called parvise; and sometimes the tower has evidently been made habitable, though, in this case, it may be rather suspected that means of defence have been contemplated. In the domus inclusa, in the vestry, and in the parvise, was often an altar, which not unfrequently remains. (See Altar.)

The chancel was separated from the nave by a screen, cancelli, from which the word chancel is derived, and over the screen a loft was extended, bearing the rood—a figure of our blessed Lord on the cross, and, on either side, figures of the Blessed Virgin and of St. John. But few rood lofts remain, but the screen is of frequent occurrence, especially in the northern and eastern counties. The loft was generally gained by a newel stair running up the angle between the chancel and the nave, but sometimes apparently by moveable steps. The side chapels were generally parted off from the adjoining parts of the church by screens, called parcloses. The chancel, if any conventual body was attached to the church, was furnished with stalls, which were set against the north and south walls, and returned against the rood screen, looking east. Connected with the altar, and sometimes, also, with some of the chantry altars, were sedilia, in the south wall of the chancel, varying in number from one to five, for the officiating clergy; and, eastward of these, the piscina; also an aumbrie, or locker, in the north chancel wall. The altar and these accessories were generally raised at least one step above the level of the rest of the chancel floor, and the chancel itself the like height from the nave. The font stood against the first pillar to the left hand, entering at the south porch; it was often raised on steps, and furnished with an elaborate cover. (See Baptistery.) The pulpit always stood in the nave, generally against a north pillar in cathedrals; but in other churches, generally against a south pillar, towards the east. The seats for the congregation were placed in a double series along the nave, with an alley between, and looking east. There are a few instances of seats with doors, but none of high pews till the time of the Puritans.

The doors to the church were almost always opposite to one another in the second bay of the aisles: besides these, there was often a west door, and this is generally supposed to denote some connexion with a monastic body, and was, perhaps, especially used on occasions of greater pomp, processions, and the like. What is usually called the priest’s door, at the south side of the chancel, opens always from within, and was, therefore, not (as is usually supposed) for the priest to enter by: in which case, moreover, it would rather have been to the north, where the glebe house usually stands. Was it for the exit of those who had assisted at mass? A little bell-cot is often seen over the nave and altar, or on some other part of the church, called the service-bell-cot; for the bell rung at certain solemn parts of the service of the mass; as at the words “Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Deus Sabaoth,” and at the elevation of the Host. If, as is supposed, those who were not in the church were accustomed to kneel at this time, there is an obvious reason for the external position of this bell.

CHURCHING OF WOMEN. The birth of man is so truly wonderful, that it seems to be designed as a standing demonstration of the omnipotence of God. And therefore that the frequency of it may not diminish our admiration, the Church orders a public and solemn acknowledgment to be made on every such occasion by the woman on whom the miracle is wrought; who still feels the bruise of our first parents’ fall, and labours under the curse which Eve then entailed upon her whole sex.

As to the original of this custom, it is not to be doubted but that, as many other Christian usages received their rise from other parts of the Jewish economy, so did this from the rite of purification, which is enjoined so particularly in the twelfth chapter of Leviticus. Not that we observe it by virtue of that precept, which we grant to have been ceremonial, and so not now of any force; but because we apprehend some moral duty to have been implied in it by way of analogy, which must be obligatory upon all, even when the ceremony is ceased. The uncleanness of the woman, the set number of days she is to abstain from the tabernacle, and the sacrifices she was to offer when she first came abroad, are rites wholly abolished, and what we no ways regard; but then the open and solemn acknowledgment of God’s goodness in delivering the mother, and increasing the number of mankind, is a duty that will oblige to the end of the world. And therefore, though the mother be now no longer obliged to offer the material sacrifices of the law, yet she is nevertheless bound to offer the evangelical sacrifice of praise. She is still publicly to acknowledge the blessing vouchsafed her, and to profess her sense of the fresh obligation it lays her under to obedience. Nor indeed may the Church be so reasonably supposed to have taken up this rite from the practice of the Jews, as she may be, that she began it in imitation of the Blessed Virgin, who, though she was rather sanctified than defiled by the birth of our Lord, and so had no need of purification from any uncleanness, whether legal or moral; yet wisely and humbly submitted to this rite, and offered her praise, together with her blessed Son, in the temple. And that from hence this usage was derived among Christians seems probable, not only from its being so universal and ancient, that the beginning of it can hardly anywhere be found; but also from the practice of the Eastern Church, where the mother still brings the child along with her, and presents it to God on her churching-day. The priest indeed is there said to “purify” them: and in our first Common Prayer, this office with us was entitled “the Order of the Purification of Women.” But that neither of these terms implied, that the woman had contracted any uncleanness in her state of child-bearing, may not only be inferred from the silence of the offices both in the Greek Church and ours, in relation to any uncleanness; but is also further evident from the ancient laws relating to this practice, which by no means ground it upon any impurity from which the woman stands in need to be purged. And therefore, when our own liturgy came to be reviewed, to prevent all misconstructions that might be put upon the word, the title was altered, and the office named, (as it is still in our present Common Prayer Book,) “The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, commonly called, The Churching of Women.”—Dean Comber, Wheatly.

When Holy Scripture describes excessive sorrow in the most expressive manner, it likens it to that of a woman in travail. And if this sorrow be so excessive, how great must the joy be to be delivered from that sorrow! commensurate certainly, and of adequate proportion: and no less must be the debt of thankfulness to the benefactor, the donor of that recovery; whence a necessity of “thanksgiving of women after child-birth.” If it be asked, why the Church hath appointed a particular form for this deliverance, and not for deliverance from other cases of equal danger? the answer is, the Church did not so much take measure of the peril, as accommodate herself to that mark of separation which God himself hath put between this and other maladies. “To conceive and bring forth in sorrow” was signally inflicted upon Eve; and, in her, upon all mothers, as a penalty for her first disobedience (Gen. iii. 16); so that the sorrows of child-birth have, by God’s express determination, a more direct and peculiar reference to Eve’s disobedience than any other disease whatsoever; and, though all maladies are the product of the first sin, yet is the malediction specifically fixed and applied to this alone. Now, when that which was ordained primarily as a curse for the first sin, is converted to so great a blessing, God is certainly in that case more to be praised in a set and solemn office.—L’ Estrange.