Excommunication: definition and causes

[Olympiada]

Greetings everyone,

I am wondering if someone explain to me the reasons for excommunication, what this means and if it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction or even diocese to diocese.

Thanks
Olympiada

[Herman Blaydoe]

I would say it varies from bishop to bishop and from one excommunicant to the next. Sin is not a crime to be punished, it is a sickness to be healed. Different physicians may work from the same guidelines, but have to treat each patient individually. If different doctors treat the same illness slightly differently, should spiritual physicians be different?

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear all,

Earlier in this thread, Olympiada wrote:


I am wondering if someone explain to me the reasons for excommunication, what this means and if it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction or even diocese to diocese.

To which Herman replied:


I would say it varies from bishop to bishop and from one excommunicant to the next. Sin is not a crime to be punished, it is a sickness to be healed. Different physicians may work from the same guidelines, but have to treat each patient individually. If different doctors treat the same illness slightly differently, should spiritual physicians be different?

Herman brings up a good point, which is that excommunication (literally a forbidding from receiving communion) is actually a restorative practice, not a punishment. It is intended to be a healing measure, applied to situations in which a foolhardy approach to the chalice in a given context of sin would be more damaging than fruitful (calling to mind the pre-communion prayer, that the chalice is a 'fire that illumines the ready soul, but burns the unworthy'); a protection against that judgement one might call upon oneself by treating the sacrament flippantly through his or her sin.

As such, excommunication is in fact a routine pastoral act. It is entirely common for spiritual fathers to 'excommunicate' their children for a time -- i.e., instruct them not to receive communion -- until a situation, interior or exterior, is addressed.

INXC, Matthew

[Christina Williams]

Having been excommunicated.......or as my priest pointed out having 'excommunicated myself' I have to admit that the 'experience' unpleasant as it was has strengthend my faith.

I am new to Orthodoxy, coming from a mixed RC and Protestant background. On hearing that I'd been excommunicated I was both enraged and terrified...to me I had been condemned to hell.

However, on speaking to my priest........and being totally taken aback with his willingness to speak to me...as I said I thought excommunication was the end.........I understood 'why' and then the purpose. This allowed me to then look at the problem and spend time in prayer.

The result was that I realised that I had 'changed direction' and was following a wrong path..........I then went to confession and was once again able to take communion.

My priest has not changed in the least in his attitude towards me........it was nothing personal........it was not about control or punishment.....it was to help me to look again at the path I had chosen.

It was an act of mercy I suppose.