This is the definition from the New Advent website:
Excommunication (Lat. ex, out of, and communio or communicatio, communion - exclusion from the communion), the principal and severest censure, is a medicinal, spiritual penalty that deprives the guilty Christian of all participation in the common blessings of ecclesiastical society. Being a penalty, it supposes guilt; and being the most serious penalty that the Church can inflict, it naturally supposes a very grave offence. It is also a medicinal rather than a vindictive penalty, being intended, not so much to punish the culprit, as to correct him and bring him back to the path of righteousness. It necessarily, therefore, contemplates the future, either to prevent the recurrence of certain culpable acts that have grievous external consequences, or, more especially, to induce the delinquent to satisfy the obligations incurred by his offence. Its object and its effect are loss of communion, i.e. of the spiritual benefits shared by all the members of Christian society; hence, it can affect only those who by baptism have been admitted to that society.
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Four quick questions - is it under the jurisdiction of the Pope to determine who can be excommunicated (and who receives absolution from it as well)? i was reading this book, and it stated somewhere that "Tolstoy was excommunicated by the Holy Synod, the ruling body of the Russian Orthodoxy Church under the Tsars." i guess my second question is - what is the Holy Synod? The book didn't go into detail as to what the Holy Synod is (probably assumed their readers were well-informed about this
). Does the Pope have any authority over the Holy Synod? What if they wanted to excommunicate someone and the Pope disagreed? (Maybe that's not likely to occur though, not certain).
Last question - in the past ten years, has anyone been excommunicated and if so what were the reasons? Reason for asking this is because i am trying to figure out what one has to have done in order to be excommunicated. Hundreds of years ago, according to the website i think, it was practicing heresy, but what about today?
Excommunication (Lat. ex, out of, and communio or communicatio, communion - exclusion from the communion), the principal and severest censure, is a medicinal, spiritual penalty that deprives the guilty Christian of all participation in the common blessings of ecclesiastical society. Being a penalty, it supposes guilt; and being the most serious penalty that the Church can inflict, it naturally supposes a very grave offence. It is also a medicinal rather than a vindictive penalty, being intended, not so much to punish the culprit, as to correct him and bring him back to the path of righteousness. It necessarily, therefore, contemplates the future, either to prevent the recurrence of certain culpable acts that have grievous external consequences, or, more especially, to induce the delinquent to satisfy the obligations incurred by his offence. Its object and its effect are loss of communion, i.e. of the spiritual benefits shared by all the members of Christian society; hence, it can affect only those who by baptism have been admitted to that society.
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Four quick questions - is it under the jurisdiction of the Pope to determine who can be excommunicated (and who receives absolution from it as well)? i was reading this book, and it stated somewhere that "Tolstoy was excommunicated by the Holy Synod, the ruling body of the Russian Orthodoxy Church under the Tsars." i guess my second question is - what is the Holy Synod? The book didn't go into detail as to what the Holy Synod is (probably assumed their readers were well-informed about this
). Does the Pope have any authority over the Holy Synod? What if they wanted to excommunicate someone and the Pope disagreed? (Maybe that's not likely to occur though, not certain).Last question - in the past ten years, has anyone been excommunicated and if so what were the reasons? Reason for asking this is because i am trying to figure out what one has to have done in order to be excommunicated. Hundreds of years ago, according to the website i think, it was practicing heresy, but what about today?
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