Правило 73 Василия Великого

He who has renounced Christ and become a criminal against the sacrament of salvation must be among those who mourn throughout his life and must confess: and at the end of his life he will be rewarded with the sacrament of holy things, out of faith in God’s love for mankind. (Ap. 62; I Universe. 10; Ankyr. 1, 2, 3, 12; Petra Alex. 8, 10, 14). Regarding apostates, the rules of the Council of Ankyra and Peter of Alexandria are not as strict as the present rule of St. Basil, which prescribes that an apostate from Christ must remain at the first stage of repentance all his life, therefore, must always stand outside the church gates during church services and weepingly ask the faithful to pray for him to God and only before death can he be awarded Holy Communion by faith that God will forgive his sins. This severity, in other words, the greater leniency of the Ancyra Council and Peter of Alexandria towards the apostates, is explained by the circumstances of the time, namely, that at the time of Basil the Great, the Christian faith was already established in the world, so that, therefore, apostates could be judged more strictly than at the beginning of the 4th century, when the church was still persecuted, and many were forced by force to become apostates. You might be interested in: