Excommunication

Excommunication is a formal ecclesiastical penalty that excludes a person from participation in a church’s sacraments and communion. Its rules and effects vary among Christian traditions.

Canon law: Canon law is the body of rules and procedures governing the organization and discipline of a church. It supplies the formal rules by which churches define and impose excommunication.
Early Christianity: Early Christianity is the movement and communities that emerged from Jesus’s followers in the first centuries CE. Its communities developed the disciplinary practices that later became formal excommunication.
Suspension (ecclesiastical penalty): Suspension is a church penalty that temporarily bars a cleric from exercising some or all ministerial duties. It restricts a cleric’s ministry rather than generally excluding a member from communion.
Eucharist: The Eucharist is the Christian rite of sharing bread and wine in remembrance of Jesus’s Last Supper. Excommunication commonly bars a person from receiving this central sacrament.
Ecclesiastical censure: An ecclesiastical censure is a church penalty intended to prompt correction or address misconduct. Excommunication is one form of this broader category of church penalty.
Apostolic Decree: The Apostolic Decree is a set of requirements for Gentile believers recorded in Acts 15. It illustrates early efforts to set binding terms for participation in Christian communities.
Defrocking: Defrocking is the removal of a person’s clerical status or authorization to minister. It concerns clerical office, while excommunication concerns membership in sacramental communion.
Church discipline: Church discipline is the set of practices by which a religious community addresses conduct and maintains its norms. Excommunication is among the strongest measures used within church discipline.
Latae sententiae: Latae sententiae is a Catholic canonical penalty incurred automatically when a person commits a specified offense. Some Catholic excommunications take effect automatically rather than through a separate sentence.
1 Corinthians 5: 1 Corinthians 5 is a New Testament chapter in which Paul directs a church to exclude a member for serious misconduct. It is an early scriptural example of removing someone from a Christian community.

Linked from 27 pages