Excommunication facts for kids

Excommunication is a religious act used to take off or suspend membership in a religious community.

The word literally means out of communion, or no longer in communion. In some churches, excommunication includes the belief that the person who was exocommunicated is going to Hell. Sometimes punishment follow excommunication; these include being banned, shunning, and shaming, depending on the group's religion or religious community.

Related pages

• Takfiri

• Encyclopedia of American Religions, by J. Gordon Melton ISBN: 0-8103-6904-4
• Ludlow, Daniel H. ed, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Macmillan Publishing, 1992.

Images for kids

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  Details of the excommunication penalty at the foundling wheel in Venice, Italy

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  Mírzá Muhammad ʻAlí, son of Baháʼu'lláh was excommunicated by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá.

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  Plaque on exterior of the Chiesa della Pietà in Venice, the church of the orphanage. This is where the foundling wheel once stood. The inscription declares, citing a 12 November 1548 papal bull of Pope Paul III, that God inflicts "maledictions and excommunications" on all who abandon a child of theirs whom they have the means to rear, and that they cannot be absolved unless they first refund all expenses incurred.

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  Martin Luther was excommunicated by Pope Leo X in 1521.

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  Threat of excommunication for stealing books from the Salamanca University library

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  Isabelo de los Reyes, founder of the Aglipayan Church was excommunicated by Pope Leo XIII in 1903 as a schismatic apostate.

See also

In Spanish: Excomunión para niños