Main reasons
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According to church canons, there may be the following reasons for excommunication:
- Aggression, human embitterment, unconfessed sins, unforgiven grievances;
- Insufficient preparation. According to the canons, 3 days before communion you must fast, read the preparatory canons, and if confession and communion fall on the same day, then you cannot eat any food before communion;
- Drunken state. Smokers and drinkers should not drink anything before communion. The priest can excommunicate from communion those who came to church drunk or smoked before communion;
- A serious unrepentant sin. This could be fornication, civil marriage, or murder, violence against others, the unrepentant sin of abortion, and much more. He can exclude a person from communion.
If a person cannot cope with some sin, the priest imposes penance on him, observing which the person abstains from communion. Only when he corrects the sin will the parishioner be allowed to receive communion. Penance can be accompanied by the performance of small obedience, for example, you need to make a certain number of bows every day or read a prayer. Only in this case will the ban be lifted and the person will be allowed to take communion again.
Before communion, it is important to choose an experienced confessor who is well versed in many issues of modern life and is flexible in dealing with the psychological nuances of situations.
They were not allowed to receive Communion. What to do?
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Reader question:
I have sinned a lot! She repented of her sins. Even in the diocese I wrote a complaint against the priest that after confession he did not allow me to take communion. He asked me to withdraw the complaint, but this time he did not allow me to take communion. I prepared myself, asked him for forgiveness, what should I do? Should I go to another temple or stay in the temple that is closer to home?
Kaleria
Priest Roman Posypkin answers:
Dear Kaleria!
Maybe, before changing the temple, before running around looking for a more “convenient” priest for you, you should take a closer look at yourself? Let me try to help you.
What did you want to achieve by complaining about the priest to his superiors? Did you want to punish the priest who, in your opinion, because of his own whim, did not allow you to receive communion? Let's take a closer look at this situation.
So, can you say that you were worthy of communion after your confession? If you can’t say that, then the priest did what he should. After all, he is personally responsible before God for who he teaches the Body and Blood of the Lord in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. You see, your complaint against the priest was another sin that wounded your soul. For because of this complaint the priest will undoubtedly suffer. It’s good that you prepared and asked him for forgiveness, but, apparently, while asking for forgiveness, you did not repent of your action. And without sincere repentance for your sins and without a firm intention on your part not to commit them again, the priest has no right to allow you to take communion. So in this case, you should not look for “another temple,” but look for humility and contrition within yourself for your own sins.
If you think that after confession you were worthy to accept the Body and Blood of Christ, but the priest refused you this, then, again, you should not slander him, not try to look for “another temple,” but think about why the Lord, acting in the Sacrament of Repentance, He Himself, through the priest, allowed you to undergo this test.
Talk to the priest and find out what exactly is causing the exclusion from communion. It may very well be that it is connected not with your letter, but with something else.
In any case, it is a sin to grumble against any person, and even to grumble against a priest who teaches you the Sacraments of the Lord is a very great sin. For, by condemning the actions of the priest in the Sacraments, you are judging God Himself, Who acts through the priest.
Remember this, dear Kaleria, and God bless you!
An archive of all questions can be found here. If you do not find the question you are interested in, you can always ask it on our website.
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Excommunicated from communion: reasons, canons and dangers
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Details 07/11/2016 14:42
In what cases is a person excommunicated from communion? How long can penance be? Why is it better for a person, if he has committed a serious sin, to wait for his confessor, rather than go to the first priest he comes across? Answered by Archpriest Igor Gagarin, rector of St. John the Baptist Church in the village of Ivanovskoye.
A one-time exclusion from communion always occurs due to specific circumstances. That is, I see that a person at this particular moment should not go to the Chalice. Either because he is in a quarrel with someone and has not reconciled, or, for example, he simply does not understand what he is going to do. Yes, there have been cases when a person is going to the Chalice, but when I start talking to him, it turns out that he doesn’t even have the remotest idea what the sacrament of communion is. We have to explain to him, talk about the meaning of the sacrament, about preparation for it.
There are many reasons for such a one-time exclusion. And it is very important here to explain to the person that the priest says that communion is undesirable for him not because he wants to punish him, but because communion will simply not be beneficial, not for salvation, but for judgment and condemnation.
For what sins can they impose
The ban on communion is imposed quite rarely in our time. The reason for such an extreme measure must be sufficiently compelling. Typically, this occurs when a Christian commits one or more mortal sins. And, especially, if he persists in them, not having the spiritual strength to give up the addiction or does not feel sincere repentance for what he has done.
For abortion
Orthodoxy considers abortion a more serious sin than murder. This is explained by the fact that the baby in the womb is still unbaptized and dies as such. This sin is committed by people who forget that every person comes into this world only by the will of God. And they have no right to decide who lives and who doesn’t. It is believed that God punishes aborted children, and both parents must pray for such a sin in church.
For fornication
Bodily incontinence, love for carnal pleasures sometimes exceeds the limits established by God and human society. Fornication refers not only to promiscuous sexual intercourse among men or women who are not bound by marriage and leading a free lifestyle.
Sacrament of Communion
The sacrament of communion is the most important, and, unlike many others, such as baptism, it is done more than once in a lifetime. We have already told you that communion includes two components - bread - prosphora, and Cahors, but there is one more, the most important one - prayer, the ritual with the help of which communion is celebrated. And we will tell you how this ritual takes place.
So, the priest who will administer communion, first of all, must himself be cleansed before the service, and therefore, he confesses to another priest, and with a pure soul, he enters the altar to pray. In addition, he should not take any food before partaking of the sacrament, just like ordinary parishioners. They don’t take any prosphoras either; they read a serious prayer for health. When people come to church for services, they submit special notes with the names of their relatives and friends so that the priest will pray for their health. Also attached to these notes are prosphora, which are then used in communion.
The priest reads strong prayers, reading for the health of all those whose names are written in the notes, and, with a special ritual knife, takes out a piece from the prosphora and adds it to a special bowl, from which the sacrament is then served. Also, a strong prayer is read for the salvation of humanity, and Cahors is added to the bowl, all this is mixed with special instruments, and with prayer the priest brings this bowl out in front of the people.
At the same time, a special song is read, which gives blessing to people to accept a piece of God and reunite with him. It reads: “Receive the Body of Christ, taste the immortal source.” The person approaches the chalice, crosses his hands, and partakes of the holy communion. After this, he drinks it with sacred water and eats a piece of prosphora.
It is believed that after tasting such grace one should not spit, swear, quarrel or get angry. Try to keep a piece of God in you for as long as possible, although misdeeds will constantly come your way, and try to do so. May you lose the blessing you have received.
History of the Sacrament of Communion
The history of the sacrament of communion is very interesting, and it began in pre-Christian times, during paganism. After all, you probably know that Orthodoxy partly consists of pagan rituals, and so, in paganism there was such a ritual as eating God. They used many elements of both anointings and sacraments. We still use some today, without implying that it came to us from pagan culture. For example, the symbol of the sun god, the god Ra, was a pancake, yes, an ordinary Russian pancake. In addition, it was believed that eating God would bring happiness, luck, love, good health, and therefore, people baked pancakes and ate them, especially to celebrate Maslenitsa, which symbolized the coming of the god Ra to earth. This, in fact, is where eating a piece of God came from.
In Orthodoxy, this sacrament appeared on Secret Thursday, on the eve of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it was he who introduced this sacrament at the table, together with the apostles. According to legend, the Lord blessed bread and wine by mixing them in a golden bowl and taking a piece, and said that after his crucifixion, these particles would gain a soul, and there would be a blessing to all those who eat them. And then Christ said a prayer, with which priests still bless the cup of communion, thereby creating a great sacrament: “Take my body for the remission of sins, drink from this cup, this is my blood, which will be shed for you and your salvation.” .
Here is an interesting story about the emergence of the sacrament of communion, which still occurs in all Orthodox churches and monasteries.
Can a priest refuse confession and absolution?
The sacrament of confession cannot be performed on unbaptized people, because only members of the Church can participate in church sacraments (except Baptism). It is also impossible to make a confession if a person is not aware of his actions (for example, he is unconscious, or if the person’s mind is clouded, or he is in a state of alcoholic or drug intoxication, etc.). During confession, the priest may not read the prayer of permission if the person who comes to confession does not repent of his sins and does not have the intention to stop serious, mortal sins.
Repentance stages in the past
Among the first Christians, penance was prescribed in the form of temporary excommunication from church life. Such punishment for sinners took place publicly and was divided into several types.
Repentant Christians (“crying”) were ordered to stand at the entrance to the temple and cry to God for the forgiveness of their sins. They were not allowed to cross the threshold of the temple.
Hearing
Other sinners (“listening”) were only allowed to be in the vestibule of the church. Here they stood and listened to prayers and passages from Holy Scripture. Together with the catechumens they were obliged to leave the temple.
Seizure
Repentant sinners (“those who fall”) were allowed to serve together with the faithful. They fell on their faces during the announcement of a special prayer read by the bishop.
Repentance
The last and easiest penance fell on those “standing together.” These are Christians who could attend the liturgy, but were not allowed to take communion. As we see, only the fourth and final type of repentance has survived to this day.
Not to punish, but to overcome
Excommunication for some time from the sacrament makes sense only when it will benefit the person. We do this not to punish a person, but to help him overcome this or that sin. Therefore, any penance sets its goal so that a person, during the time when he will not be able to receive communion, experiences and realizes his sin. And so that when the appointed time finally passes and he goes to the Chalice, a different vision of the situation will mature in his soul. This especially applies to adultery.
I repeat, there are things when it is really wrong to cover the epitrachelion and say: “Your sins are forgiven.” For a person to understand, you need to work hard to overcome this sin within yourself.
But here everything is individual and each priest considers each situation...
