“The taking off Excommunications after death hath been usual, but the Excommunicating after death may seem a strange kind of severity; for so we read that Theodosius, Bishop of Alexandria, excommunicated Origen two hundred years after his decease.
“On the same Authority of Excommunication depends the power of re-admission again into the Church, which according to the Greek Canon is not to be obtained easily, or at every cold request of the Penitent, but after proof of trial first made of a hearty and serious conversion, evidenced by the constant and repeated actions of a holy life, and the patient and obedient performance of Penance imposed and enjoined by the Church. Such as have apostatized from the Faith, by becoming Turks, under the age of 14 years, upon their repentance, and desire of return to the Church, sought earnestly with tears, signified and attested by forty days fasting with bread and water, accompanied with continual Prayer day and night, are afterwards received solemnly into the Church in presence of the Congregation, the Priest making a Cross on the Forehead of the Penitent with the Oyl of Chrism, or the μύρον Χρίσματος usually administered to such who return from the ways of darkness and mortal sins.
“But of such who in riper years fall away from the Faith (as many Greeks do for the sake of Women, or escape of punishment) their re-admission or reception again into the Church is more difficult; for to some of them there is enjoined a Penance of six or seven years humbling themselves with extraordinary Fasts, and continual Prayer; during which time they remain in the nature of Catechumeni, without the use or comfort of the Eucharist, or Absolution, unless at the hour of death; in which the Church is so rigorous, that the Patriarch himself is not able to release a Penance of this nature, imposed only by a simple Priest; and for receiving Penitents of this nature there is a set Form or Office in the Greek Liturgy.
“But now we have few Examples of those Apostates who return from the Mohametan to the Christian faith; for none dares own such a Conversion but he who dares to dye for it; so that that practice and admirable part of Discipline is become obsolete and disused. Yet some there have been, even in my time, both of the Greek and Armenian Churches, who have afforded more Heroick Examples of Repentance, than any of
