Excommunication is a traditional religious punishment that is used in Christianity and applies to people who, through their behavior or expressed beliefs, damage ecclesial authority. Although there is evidence that such measures were applied to apostates and violators in Judaism and pagan religions (for example, among the ancient Celts). At present, it exists in the form of the so-called partial, minor excommunication (prohibition) and anathema. The first of them is a temporary measure, and the second is issued for a period until the offender fully repents.
It can be said that the meaning of this measure of punishment is rooted in early Christianity. Since the Greek meaning of the word "church" means "assembly" or community of believers, a person who, having joined this group of people ("ecclesia") and having made certain promises, broke them, was deprived of all communication withthem.
In addition, "communion" in those days was associated with a joint thanksgiving meal, which took place in memory of the Last Supper. Therefore, excommunication from the church was perceived as a ban on the guilty to communicate with believers until repentance.
However, later the meaning of this religious punishment underwent very serious changes, and even became an instrument of repression, including political ones. First, it was extended to people who had beliefs that were significantly or not very different from the views of the majority, and, above all, the power group. Such people became known as heretics. Then came such an excommunication as an interdict, which was practiced mainly in Western Europe, when in a city or village that suffered punishment, they did not baptize, marry or bury in cemeteries.
Moreover, in the XII-XIII centuries, such a seemingly religious punishment began to automatically carry more serious consequences
nye consequences and legal liability. Excommunication from the church - expulsion from the so-called "Christian people", led to the fact that the person whom it befell could be killed or robbed, and no one had to help him. The anathema of an unrepentant heretic, in practice and in the language of the Inquisition, meant that he was handed over to the secular authorities "for the execution of a due punishment" - for the death pen alty at the stake.
In the Orthodox Church, this punishment was also often repressive. In particular, the excommunicated person does not
he could not be buried according to Christian customs. A striking example of this is the story of such an outstanding writer as Leo Tolstoy. The excommunication of such a "ruler of thoughts" because he criticized Orthodoxy and adhered to his own views on Christianity, in particular, on dogmatics and rituals, caused a sharp protest reaction. His wife, being a law-abiding Orthodox Christian, wrote an indignant letter to the Holy Synod.
Not only secular humanists or revolutionary-minded youth reacted in a similar way, but religious philosophers, and even the legal adviser of Emperor Nicholas II, who called this decision of the Synod "stupidity." The writer himself responded to Tolstoy's excommunication with a letter, where he noted that this document was illegal, was not drawn up according to the rules and encouraged other people to do bad things. He also stated that he himself would not want to belong to a community whose teaching he considers false and harmful, hiding the very essence of Christianity.
