Excommunication

The Armenian Patriarchate has excommunicated an Armenian jeweler for making unfounded allegations about Patriarch Sahak Maşalyan and the clergy and not repenting in the one-week period given to him.

The Orban government is preparing to extend the state of alert to avoid the censure motion, an ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, ed. n.) post written on the party's Facebook page on Monday says. "To avoid the motion of censure, the Iohannis-Orban government is preparing to extend the state of alert! We bet that the Parliament will no longer vote for this exceptional state!

Bishop Anthimos of Alexandroupoli has acknowledged that the strict lockdown measures imposed by the government to contain the spread of the coronavirus "protected" churchgoers.

The former bishop of Kalavryta Amvrosios on Thursday threatened to kick Education Minister Niki Kerameus out of the Greek Orthodox Church unless she takes back a statement suggesting that Holy Communion may be dangerous in the coronavirus pandemic.

The text of the censure motion contains "mystification of truth" and doesn't have not even a constructive idea that can "bring the improvement of the current act of governance" to the benefit of Romanians, Prime Minister Viorica Dancila stated on Tuesday in the debate of the censure motion called "The Dancila Government must be dismissed!

On Monday, Pope Francis extended the power of Roman Catholic priests to forgive the “grave sin” of abortion, in what has been described by some as a “signature gesture” from the Catholic Church’s just-ended Jubilee Year of Mercy.

The power to forgive abortion was a right previously reserved only for bishops or special confessors.

Francis on June 21 issued the strongest attack on organised crime groups by a pontiff in two decades, accusing them of practicing the "the adoration of evil" and saying mafiosi are excommunicated. 

It was the first time a pope had used the word excommunication - a total cutoff from the Church - in direct reference to members of organised crime.