CONVERSION means by and large changing the main principle which governs the shape and direction of a human life. As such it may be for better or for worse; a man may commit himself to evil, he may decide against God, he can adopt Marxism, if he is a Catholic he may turn to Greek Orthodoxy or to Protestantism, if he is a Christian he may become a Jew or join a religion alien to our tradition. In short, what a psychologist may call a conversion, a moralist or canonist may call an apostasy.

Moreover, a distinction can be drawn between a religious conversion and a moral conversion. The first is a matter of our ideas concerning God and the economy of salvation, a change of mind and an intellectual conviction which usually leads to the acceptance of the teaching of a religious body, and agreement with its practices.