A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

And, lastly, “shall appear, upon due examination, to be worthy of his ministry.”—As to the matter of learning, it hath been particularly allowed, not only by the courts of the King’s Bench and Common Pleas, but also by the High Court of Parliament, that the ordinary is not accountable to any temporal court, for the measures he takes or the rules by which he proceeds, in examining and judging (only he must examine in convenient time, and refuse in convenient time); and that the clerk’s having been ordained (and so presumed to be of good abilities) doth not take away or diminish the right which the statute above recited doth give to the bishop to whom the presentation is made to examine and judge.

EXARCH. An officer in the Greek Church, whose business it is to visit the provinces allotted to him, in order to inform himself of the lives and manners of the clergy; take cognizance of ecclesiastical causes; the manner of celebrating Divine service; the administration of the sacraments, particularly confession; the observance of the canons; monastic discipline; affairs of marriages; divorces, &c.

The title of exarchs, borrowed from the civil administration of the empire, was given about the fourth century to the chief bishops of certain large provinces; as the bishops of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, and of Ephesus.

EXCOMMUNICATION is an ecclesiastical censure, whereby the person against whom it is pronounced is for the time cast out of the communion of the Church.

Excommunication is of two kinds, the lesser and the greater: the lesser excommunication is the depriving the offender of the use of the sacraments and Divine worship; and this sentence is passed by judges ecclesiastical, on such persons as are guilty of obstinacy or disobedience, in not appearing upon a citation, or not submitting to penance, or other injunctions of the court.

The greater excommunication is that whereby men are deprived, not only of the sacraments and the benefit of Divine offices, but of the society and conversation of the faithful.

If a person be excommunicated generally, as if the judge say, I excommunicate such a person, this shall be understood of the greater excommunication.

The law in many cases inflicts the censure of excommunication ipso facto upon offenders; which nevertheless is not intended so as to condemn any person without a lawful trial for his offence: but he must first be found guilty in the proper court; and then the law gives that judgment. And there are divers provincial constitutions, by which it is provided, that this sentence shall not be pronounced (in ordinary cases) without previous monition or notice to the parties, which also is agreeable to the ancient canon law.

By Canon 65. “All ordinaries shall in their several jurisdictions carefully see and give order, that as well those who for obstinate refusing to frequent Divine service established by public authority within this realm of England, as those also (especially those of the better sort and condition) who for notorious contumacy, or other notable crimes, stand lawfully excommunicate, (unless within three months immediately after the said sentence of excommunication pronounced against them, they reform themselves, and obtain the benefit of absolution,) be every six months ensuing, as well in the parish church as in the cathedral church of the diocese in which they remain, by the minister, openly in the time of Divine service upon some Sunday, denounced and declared excommunicate, that others may be thereby both admonished to refrain their company and society, and excited the rather to procure a writ de excommunicato capiendo, thereby to bring and reduce them into due order and obedience. Likewise the registrar of every ecclesiastical court shall yearly, between Michaelmas and Christmas, duly certify the archbishop of the province of all and singular the premises aforesaid.”

By Canon 68. “If the minister refuse to bury any corpse, except the party deceased were denounced excommunicated by the greater excommunication, for some grievous and notorious crime, and no man able to testify of his repentance, he shall be suspended by the bishop from his ministry for the space of three months.”