You will know I am sure that Sarum Breviary
has "Purification" - and this was taken over into the BCP - 1549,
1552 and 1661. In Common Worship we now have "Presentation of Christ in
the Temple (Candlemas)" and "Purification" has gone by the
board!
As to the Churching of Women - in 25 years
of active parochial ministry (I was a geriatric ordinand!) I was only once
asked to use the service that had by then become known as Thanksgiving after
Childbirth - actually by quite a young mother (this would have been in the
early 1990's). To my knowledge it is rarely if ever asked for today.
Gordon
There is a remark, I think in ‘Akenfield’
by Ronald Blythe, by a woman who felt it was the right and proper thing to be
churched after giving birth. My copy is in the depths of a box so I can’t
check the reference. I think ‘Akenfield’ was published in the late
1960’s.
Anne