The catechumenate is the Church’s formal period of preparation for people entering Orthodoxy. It’s when you’re publicly recognized as a catechumen, someone learning the faith, and you’re prayed for at services, receive instruction, and gradually enter into the Church’s life before you’re received through baptism or chrismation.
Think of it as an apprenticeship in being Orthodox. You’re not just learning facts about the faith. You’re learning to pray, to fast, to worship, to see the world through Orthodox eyes. The word “catechumen” comes from the Greek for “one being instructed,” and that’s exactly what’s happening, you’re being formed, not just informed.
How It Works
After you’ve been visiting services for a while and meeting with the priest, there’s a formal service where you’re received as a catechumen. It usually happens at the end of Matins or before the Divine Liturgy. The priest prays over you, and from that point on, you’re part of the community in a new way. Your name gets added to the parish list. The deacon commemorates you during the litanies when he says “for the catechumens, that the Lord will have mercy on them.”
But you can’t receive communion yet. That comes later, after you’re fully received into the Church.
The catechumenate itself lasts anywhere from several months to about a year in most American parishes. Historically it could run three years or longer. The ancient Church took its time. These days we’ve adapted to modern realities, but the essential elements remain: instruction, worship, prayer, and spiritual formation under the guidance of your priest.
You’ll attend catechism classes where you learn the Creed, the sacraments, how we read Scripture, what the liturgical year means, the lives of the saints. You’ll be assigned a sponsor or godparent who walks with you through the process. You’ll start keeping a prayer rule, probably just morning and evening prayers at first. You’ll begin fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays. You’ll meet regularly with your priest to talk about what you’re learning and how you’re doing.
And you’ll be at the Divine Liturgy. Every Sunday, if you can. Not as a spectator but as someone learning to enter into the worship of the Church. You’ll stand there (we don’t have pews at St. Michael, though some Orthodox parishes do) and let the liturgy work on you week after week. At first it feels foreign. Then it starts feeling familiar. Then, if you’re paying attention, it starts feeling like home.
What Happens at the End
Most people are received into the Church during Pascha or the weeks leading up to it. There’s something fitting about being baptized at Easter, you’re dying and rising with Christ. If you were baptized in another Christian tradition, you’ll likely be received by chrismation instead, which is the Orthodox equivalent of what Catholics call confirmation. Either way, you’re sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and immediately, right then, that same service, you receive communion for the first time.
The timing depends on you and your priest. He’s watching to see if you’re ready. Not perfect. Ready. There’s a difference. He’s looking for whether you believe what the Church teaches, whether you’re trying to live it out, whether you understand what you’re getting into. The bishop has to approve your reception too, but your priest makes the recommendation.
Some people breeze through in six months. Others need longer. I know a guy who worked offshore on a two-weeks-on, two-weeks-off rotation, and it took him nearly two years because he kept missing classes and couldn’t establish any rhythm. His priest was patient. The Church has been doing this for two thousand years. She’s not in a hurry.
What’s Expected of You
Show up. That’s the main thing. Come to liturgy, come to classes, do the reading your priest assigns, keep the prayer rule he gives you. Ask questions when you don’t understand something. Tell him when you’re struggling with something. This isn’t a correspondence course where you can just read the material and take a test. You’re joining a community, a way of life.
You’ll probably read Fr. Thomas Hopko’s The Orthodox Faith series or something similar. You’ll learn the Nicene Creed by heart. You’ll figure out when to cross yourself and when to bow and what all those litanies mean. You’ll meet your patron saint and start asking for their prayers.
And somewhere in there, if things go the way they should, you’ll stop thinking of Orthodoxy as something you’re investigating and start thinking of it as home. That’s when you know the catechumenate is doing its work.
