decanonization

The tradition & historical record

Decanonization or de-canonization (prefix de- ← Latin: de preposition: down, from, away + Latin: canonizatio ← Greek: κανών – list, catalog) is the exclusion of a person's name from a list or catalog of saints; it is the opposite of canonization. Decanonization, the exclusion of a saint's name from the church calendar, was carried out in the Russian Orthodox Church, in the Catholic Church and in the Anglican Church. ¹

In the Russian Orthodox Church, the most famous case is the decanonization of the Right-Believing princess Anna of Kashin at the Great Moscow Synod in 1677–1678. The reason for the decanonization was the religious policy of the forcible introduction in Russia of the three fingers sign of the cross, instead of the older two fingers variant. The reforms that began under Alexis Mikhailovich and continued under Peter I and his followers demanded a political and ecclesiastical separation from the previous tradition and national culture, which included the decanonization of persons whose literary or hagiographic works contradicted the new religious policy. The veneration of the famous ecclesiastical writer and translator Maximus the Greek was suspended. Memorial days associated with 21 Russian saints were removed from the Typikon of 1682. During the reign of Peter I, the veneration of the martyrs Anthony, John, and Eustathius, who wore beards and suffered under a clean-shaven pagan knyaz, was stopped. After 1721 the number of new canonizations sharply decreased (only 2 new saints were canonized). In the 18th century there was a decanonization of a number of locally revered saints. However, in the 19th century, church veneration of many locally venerated saints was restored. Hegumen Andronik (Trubachev) believes that the most pernicious were not specific decanonizations, but the very admission of decanonization into church life as a possible norm, a rule implemented due to a change in church policy. In the 20th century, some of the names of previously decanonized saints were returned to the church calendar. The re-canonization of Anna of Kashin took place in the Russian Orthodox Church in 1909. ¹