Excommunication

thumb|Fanciful 16th-century fresco in the Sala Regia (Vatican)|Sala Regia, by [[Giorgio Vasari, depicting Pope Gregory IX excommunicating Frederick II. Since few details were provided to the artist, Vasari chose to paint an excommunication scene generically. In the traditional excommunication procedure, the pope and his priests would hurl burning candles on the ground and stamp them out. The painter however here chose to show the pope personally stepping on the emperor.]] Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to deprive, suspend, or limit membership in a religious c

highest ecclesiastical censure in the Jewish community