                                 CODE OF VIRGINIA

COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN MINISTERS OF RELIGION AND PERSONS THEY COUNSEL OR ADVISE
(SUPREME COURT RULE 2:503 DERIVED IN PART FROM THIS SECTION) (§ 8.01-400)

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 testimony as a witness or to
relinquish notes, records or any written documentation made by such person, or
disclose the contents of any such notes, records or written documentation, in
discovery proceedings in any civil action 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 person so communicating such information about himself or another is
seeking spiritual counsel and advice relative to and growing out of the
information so imparted.

HISTORY: Code 1950, § 8-289.2; 1962, c. 466; 1977, c. 617; 1979, c. 3; 1994, c.
198.