darken

To attend church or a service therein. I was raised Catholic, but I haven't darkened a church door since I was 15 years old.

Fig. [for an unwelcome person] to come to someone's door seeking entry. (As if the visitor were casting a shadow on the door. Formal, or even jocular.) Who is this who has come to darken my door? She pointed to the street and said, "Go and never darken my door again!"

if you tell someone never to darken your door again, you mean you never want to see them again Did her father really tell you never to darken his door again? How melodramatic.

Come unwanted to someone's home, as in I told him to get out and never darken my door again. The verb darken here refers to casting one's shadow across the threshold, a word that occasionally was substituted for door. As an imperative, the expression is associated with Victorian melodrama, where someone (usually a young woman or man) is thrown out of the parental home for some misdeed, but it is actually much older. Benjamin Franklin used it in The Busybody (1729): "I am afraid she would resent it so as never to darken my doors again."