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<law><site_title>Virginia Decoded</site_title><site_url>https://vacode.org</site_url><law_id>61689</law_id><section_number>8.01-400</section_number><catch_line>Communications between ministers of religion and persons they counsel or advise (Supreme Court Rule 2:503 derived in part from this section)</catch_line><edition url="https://vacode.org/2025/" slug="2025" current="TRUE" last_updated="">2025</edition><referred_to_by><reference>63.2-1509</reference></referred_to_by><structure><unit label="title" level="1" order_by="1" identifier="8.01">Civil Remedies and Procedure</unit><unit label="chapter" level="2" order_by="1" identifier="14">Evidence</unit><unit label="article" level="3" order_by="1" identifier="4">Witnesses Generally</unit></structure><text>
						<section><p>No regular minister, priest, rabbi, or accredited practitioner over the age of eighteen years, of any religious organization or denomination usually referred to as a church, shall be required to give <span class="dictionary">testimony</span> as a <span class="dictionary">witness</span> or to relinquish notes, records or any written documentation made by such <span class="dictionary">person</span>, or disclose the contents of any such notes, records or written documentation, in <span class="dictionary">discovery</span> proceedings in any <span class="dictionary">civil action</span> which would disclose any information communicated to him in a confidential manner, properly entrusted to him in his professional capacity and necessary to enable him to discharge the functions of his office according to the usual course of his practice or discipline, wherein such <span class="dictionary">person</span> so communicating such information about himself or another is seeking spiritual <span class="dictionary">counsel</span> and advice relative to and growing out of the information so imparted.</p></section></text><history>Code 1950, &#xA7; 8-289.2; 1962, c. 466; 1977, c. 617; 1979, c. 3; 1994, c. 198.</history><metadata></metadata></law>
