This practice, as well as many other traditions, came
to us from the East, from where the Holy Church itself has its roots. In the
ancient East (in some Muslim countries it remains even today) almost all the
spheres of people’s life, including prayer, were divided according to gender.
Some facilities or conditions were for men, while others were for women.
Today this practice is not a must. Such “separation”
in the church was aimed to help people concentrate better on prayer and focus
on it as their personal communion with God. The idea itself was the following: standing in
the church near a person of a different gender could disturb us from prayer, to
say the least. Then our presence at the Divine service becomes just a physical presence,
but not participation.
People’s thoughts in the church must be focused only
on God, on communion with Him. We should leave all the earthly thoughts and
worries outside the doors of the church. It is even said about this in one of
the prayers of the Orthodox liturgy – the Cherubic Hymn, in which the Church
calls upon all the praying people to “lay aside all earthly cares”.
Translated
by The Catalog of Good Deeds
Source: https://pravlife.org/ru/content/pochemu-v-hrame-muzhchiny-stoyat-sprava-zhenshchiny-sleva-naskolko-obyazatelno-takoe
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