In the early church, various forms of penance developed for dealing with those who had sinned in a particularly serious way (and for those who had renounced the faith under persecution). Standards for readmittance were rigorous. For example, the canons at the Synod of Ancyra in 314 stipulate that someone could be a penitent for twenty or thirty years; in some cases (as with willful murder) they could be readmitted to communion only at the end of their life.10
