Apostasy is a procedure by which we can renounce our religion.
Apostasy is the act and consequence of apostasy . The term has its etymological root in a Greek word that reached late Latin as apostasĭa .
Give up a religion
The verb apostatize , meanwhile, refers to renouncing a religion . It may be an individual who makes public the abandonment of his faith or a religious person who chooses to leave the order he was a member of.
Apostasy, in short, involves moving away from a religion. The apostate renounces his faith , leaving aside the dogmas and precepts that, until then, he was committed to respecting and following.
Apostasy is associated with freedom of religion and conscience . There are those who consider that it is a right of the people and maintain that the decision to apostatize must be recorded in some document. It is also requested that, with the apostasy, the individual's data be removed from any list of members of the religious group in question.
It is possible to link apostasy to disaffiliation . The scope and materialization of this decision varies depending on religion and legislation .
In Christianity
Let's look at the case of Christianity. Whoever receives the sacrament of baptism becomes part of the Christian community. Generally this ritual is performed at an early age, so the child has no awareness or decision-making power over the process. If, in adulthood, the baptized person wants to formally renounce Christianity, he or she must resort to apostasy.
It should be noted that there is a campaign of collective apostasy that promotes a massive renunciation of the Catholic Church. This is an initiative of agnostics and atheists who, in their childhood, were baptized and now aspire to express their rejection of the institutions of Catholicism.
Apostasy in Spain
The procedure to access apostasy in Spain today is quite simple, although not as simple as simply saying "I no longer want to be part of this religion." Let's see below the four fundamental steps to achieve it. The first is to obtain the baptism certificate , the document necessary to begin the process. Of course, as easy as it may seem, not all of us have it on hand and if we have to request a new issue we must go to the parish in which we were baptized.
It should be added that it is not free, although its price is around ten euros. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for the priest to try to dissuade us from apostasy, which is why many recommend saying that we need it to get married or that we simply want to have it as a souvenir. The second step is to photocopy the identity document; Without a doubt, infinitely simpler than the previous one. However, we must also certify the copy at a police station, that is, request that they check the copy to approve its validity.
To achieve apostasy we must complete a relatively simple and inexpensive procedure.
We are now entering into the apostasy process itself, since the third step is to fill out the corresponding form , which we can find by doing a simple search with the words "request for apostasy of" plus the current year. One of the points to keep in mind in this step is that we must indicate that we do not need a representative of the Church to advise us, since if we ignore this field they will contact us to try to convince us not to continue .
Finally, all that remains is to send the documentation or take it in person to the local diocese. If we don't know its location, once again a Google search is enough to find it. The key words in this case are the "episcopal conference" to which we belong and its respective "ecclesiastical map." The confirmation that our apostasy process has been successful is the declaration that must be sent to us by mail, which may take a few weeks to arrive.