excommunicate

Excommunicate is a verb meaning to officially exclude a person from participation in the sacraments and communal life of a church as a formal censure. The corresponding noun, excommunication, refers to the penalty or the act itself. The term comes from Latin excommunicare, meaning to remove from the share of the community.

Excommunication has been used in various Christian traditions, with procedures and consequences that differ by denomination. In general, it marks a loss of full communion, and may suspend the right to receive the Eucharist, to participate in certain worship or governance, and to hold particular offices or privileges within the church. The exact mechanisms—whether automatic (latae sententiae) or imposed after due process (ferendae sententiae)—and the offenses that trigger it vary across traditions.

In the Catholic Church, excommunication is a grave penalty intended to safeguard doctrine and sacramental life. Grounds include apostasy, heresy, schism, or serious desecration of sacred things, among others. Some excommunications are automatic upon committing specific acts; others require a formal sentence. Lifting the penalty typically follows repentance and a decision by competent ecclesiastical authority, potentially involving reconciliation with the church and access to sacraments again.

Outside Catholicism, excommunication or similar censures exist in other traditions but in different forms and with varying formality. In many modern churches, excommunication is infrequent and often paired with pastoral outreach and pathways to reconciliation. The term may also be used more loosely to describe exclusion from a group, even in secular contexts.