saint

Eastern Orthodox churches

In the Eastern Orthodox churches, excommunication is the exclusion of a member from the Eucharist. It is not expulsion from the churches. This can happen for such reasons as not having confessed within that year; excommunication can also be imposed as part of a penitential period. It is generally done with the goal of restoring the member to full communion. The Orthodox churches do have a means of expulsion, by pronouncing anathema, but this is reserved only for acts of serious and unrepentant heresy. The Moscow Patriarchate declared Sergius Bulgakov a heretic in this fashion because of his pronouncements on Sancta Sofia being something like a fourth dimension to theTrinity.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excommunication