noun
definition
A convert to Christianity under instruction before baptism; a young or recent Christian preparing for confirmation.
Examples of catechumen in a Sentence
When ten years old he became a catechumen, and at fifteen he reluctantly entered the army.
In early manhood he entered the cloister as a catechumen, receiving baptism about 370.
The prostrations of the credens before the Perfect were in their manner and import identical with the prostrations of the catechumen before the exorcist.
He also begins the rite of baptism by blowing in the catechumen's face.
Just as at the third scrutiny the early catechumen passed a last examination in the Gospels, Creed and Lord's Prayer, so after their year of abstinence the credens receives creed and prayer; the allocution with which the elder "handed on" this prayer is preserved, and of it the Abbe Guiraud remarks that, if it were not in a Cathar ritual, one might believe it to be of Catholic origin.
A fully initiated Manichaean would not even cut his own salad, but employed a catechumen to commit on his behalf this act of murder, for which he subsequently shrived him.
He fell back into the status of a catechumen, and it was much discussed from the and century onwards whether he could be restored to the church at all, and, if so, how.
An address delivered to them at this crisis by Ambrose led to his being acclaimed as the only competent occupant of the see; though hitherto only a catechumen, he was baptized, and a few days saw him duly installed as bishop of Milan.
The custom of catechizing, common to all civilized antiquity, was followed in the schools of Judaism and in the Early Church, where it helped to preserve the Gospel narrative (see Catechumen).
While stationed at Amiens he divided his cloak with a beggar, and on the following night had the vision of Christ making known to his angels this act of charity to Himself on the part of "Martinus, still a catechumen."