the.com/excommunication
The church's way of unfriending you, but for eternity and with incense.
means The formal act of expelling someone from membership and sacraments of a church, cutting them off from its community and rites.
from From Late Latin excommunicare — ex- ('out of') plus communicare ('to share, make common,' the root behind 'communion' and 'community'). So at its root it simply means 'to put out of the community' — the same word that gives us communion is here run in reverse.
- not a curse
- it bars sacraments, not your soul's fate directly
- famous recipient
- martin luther got the letter in 1521
- reversible
- repentance and reconciliation can lift it
- still active
- catholic canon law still formally uses it today