Whom can we rightly call a churched person? What does
it mean to be such a person? A churched Christian is a person who understands the aim of
the Christian way of life, which is salvation. He matches his actions with the words of the Gospel and the Holy Scripture preserved by the Church. Christianity is a norm of
life for such people. They consider fast to be not just a bunch of dietary
restrictions but the time of repentance and artistic spiritual life, while the
church feasts for them are the celebration of the events, which are directly
related to God’s providence about the salvation of the world, and most importantly
to a person himself.
Churching is a process of a person’s growing into the organism
of the Church, his turning from a nominal Christian into a true Christian, his deep
entering into the life of the Church so that it fully becomes his life too. (Hieromonk
Nektarios (Morozov))
Churching influences one’s personal and professional
relationships. They become brighter, deeper and more responsible. A person
understands that violating the Church prescriptions, he not just acts wrong but
ruins his life. This is why, at the first opportunity he comes for confession
and then partakes of the Holy Communion, for he sees the sacraments as the only
remedy for his soul, which took the path of sin. Finally, a churched person is
one who feels like the son of the Church and for whom any distancing from the Church
is painful and tragic. Unchurched people are yet to find this sonly feeling and
understand that without the Church it is impossible to reach salvation and not
to die in the void of sin, as well as it is impossible not to waste your life. (Fr. Andrew Milkin)
CONVERSATION