Ten words about repentance: the advice of the Athos fathers. Orthodox Church of John the Theologian The ABC of the Holy Fathers on Repentance
"But I have revealed my sin to You, and have not hidden my iniquity; I said, 'I confess my transgressions to the Lord,' and You have taken away from me the guilt of my sin." (Ps. 31:5).
Holy Week - last days before Easter - the path of suffering, the death of the Savior on the cross and his Resurrection. The time of fasting, which is given to a person for repentance, is coming to an end.
The Lord began his sermon with the words: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." After His Resurrection, Jesus Christ told the disciples: “Receive the Holy Spirit. To whom you forgive sins, they will be forgiven; upon whom you leave, they will remain on him” (John 20:23).
In Holy Week, believers try to attend all services. Passion services take a person back two thousand years in order to go through the path of Christ's suffering and meet His Resurrection.
Those who failed to confess during Great Lent make sure to go through the Sacrament of Repentance and take communion on Great Thursday, the day the Lord established the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the birthday of the Church.
For those who are preparing to undergo the Sacrament of Penance, we have compiled a selection of sayings of the Holy Fathers of the Church.
1. Do not hide (in confession) so as not to remain unhealed (Reverend Theodore student).
2. The Sacrament of Confession decisively cleanses all sins committed by word, deed, thought
3. In what we have sinned, in that we must ask for forgiveness (St. Clement of Rome).
4. Just as a person who is baptized by a person, that is, by a priest, is enlightened by the grace of the Holy Spirit, so the one who confesses his sins in Repentance accepts the remission of them through the priest by the grace of Jesus Christ (St. Athanasius the Great).
5. I ask you, most beloved brethren, that we confess each of our sins while the sinner is still in this life, when his confession can be accepted, when the satisfaction and forgiveness performed by the priests is pleasing to the Lord. (St. Cyprian of Carthage).
6. God does not want to hear our sins from us because he does not know them. On the contrary, He wants us to realize our own sins through confession. (Reverend Ephraim Sirin).
7. It is necessary to declare to the confessor that he forgives everyone against whom he has enmity, since God does not forgive the one who himself does not leave sins to his neighbor. This is how Christ Himself teaches: "Unless you forgive people their sins, neither will your Father forgive you your sins" (Matthew 6:15). Let him reconcile with everyone, no matter whom he offended, and if he stole something, let him return (St. Tikhon of Zadonsk).
8. The surest sign by which every repentant sinner can know whether his sins are truly forgiven by God is when we feel such hatred and disgust from all sins that we would rather agree to die than sin arbitrarily before the Lord (St. Basil the Great).
9. There is no need to ask about what sins to forgive, because New Testament makes no distinction and promises the remission of all sin to the penitent as it should (St. Basil the Great).
10. Do not reveal your thoughts to everyone, but only to those who can save your soul. (Reverend Anthony Great).
11. Every thought that produces warfare in you, reveal to your mentor, and your warfare will be lightened. Because of shame, do not allow yourself to hide a single such thought, because demons find a place for themselves only in that person who hides his thoughts - both good and evil. (Reverend Abba Isaiah).
12. The soul of that person who has the habit of often confessing his sins is kept from sinning by the memory of the forthcoming confession; on the contrary, unconfessed sins are conveniently repeated, as if committed in the dark or at night. (St. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov).
13. Repentance presupposes a radical rearrangement: in the foreground always, everywhere, in everything is God; behind, after everything, the world and its demands, unless they can be completely thrown out of the heart. In other words, repentance requires the creation of a new, unified center in a person, and this center, where all the threads of life converge, must be God. (St. Basil, Bishop of Kineshma).
14. A sign of permission from sins is that a person always considers himself a debtor to God
15. Forgiveness of sins is freedom from passions, and whoever has not been freed from them by grace has not yet received forgiveness (Rev. Thalassius).
16. This is the sign of the forgiveness of sins: if you hated sin, then the Lord forgave you your sins (Reverend Silouan of Athos).
17. Many sell confession, often flaunting themselves as better than they are. Others trade in repentance, buying them glory for themselves. Others turn repentance into an occasion for pride and instead of forgiveness write themselves a new debt obligation. (Rev. Ephraim the Syrian).
18. Whoever has remembrance of malice in his heart and thinks that he is doing repentance is like a man who imagines in a dream that he is running (Reverend John Ladder).
19. True repentance requires not repeating the sins of which a person repented, but steadily following the path of virtue (Saint righteous John Kronstadt).
20. Repentance requires renunciation of attachments and absent-mindedness. An imaginary grace-filled calmness is self-delusion. Without repentance and weeping, an attentive life does not bring good fruit. You need to pay attention to yourself, you need heart disease and contrition (Reverend Nikon of Optina).
21. In repentance all the commandments of God are combined. Repentance is the consciousness of one's fall, which has made human nature indecent, defiled, and therefore constantly in need of a Redeemer. (St. Ignatius Brianchaninov).
22. You know that this year the wheat sown last year will sprout and bear fruit. So all our evil, sown last year, will sprout and bear fruit - a cursed fruit, if we do not uproot the evil seed and sow good in its place. The eradication of the evil seed and the sowing of the good, spiritual seed is called repentance. Repentance is the beginning word of the gospel (St. Nicholas of Serbia).
23. The Lord grants the inheritance of the Kingdom to those who have been sealed with love by other virtues; either they flowed to it with their impeccable life, or through repentance they found refuge in it (St. Gregory Palamas).
24. What is repentance? Abandonment of the past and sadness about it. Repentance is the door of mercy, opening to those who seek it earnestly. Through this door we enter into God's mercy; except this entrance we will not find mercy (Rev. Isaac the Syrian).
25. The true confession is that, having rejected sin with all my soul ... to avoid it and never return to it (St. John Chrysostom).
26. Having moved away from the Sacrament of Confession, people suffocate in their thoughts and passions... And look, many people, exhausted by the problems that they have created for themselves with their sins, do not go to a confessor who can really help them, but end up “confessing” at a psychologist. They tell the psychologists the story of their illness, consult with them about their problems, and these psychologists [with their advice] seem to throw their patients into the middle of the river they need to cross. As a result, the unfortunate either drown in this river, or still swim to the other side, but the current takes them very far from the place where they wanted to be ... But when they come to confession to the confessor and confess, such people will cross without risk and fear river over the bridge. Indeed, in the Sacrament of Confession, the Grace of God acts and a person is freed from sin ...
Through confession, a person cleanses himself from the inside of everything unnecessary - and spiritually bears fruit. (Reverend Paisios Svyatogorets).
27. Not only for some sins did the Lord grant repentance. The physician of our souls gave us a cure for every disease: let not a single sinner fall into despair: Judas fell into despair and was cast out from among the apostles. If the penitent falls into sin even after his conversion, then the path resorts to repentance, it will loosen the bonds of sin. If you sin a thousand times, you will again be cleansed from the filth and from the iniquities you have committed. No matter how often you fall, you will always have the opportunity to rise if you want it. (Rev. Ephraim the Syrian).
28. Have you sinned? “Go to church and make amends for your sin. No matter how much you fall in the square, every time you get up, so no matter how many times you sin, repent of your sin, do not despair. If you sin another time, repent another time, so that through negligence you do not completely lose hope for the promised blessings. Here (in the Church) there is a medical clinic and not a court, they don’t torture here, but they give forgiveness for sins (St. John Chrysostom).
29. If you were forgiven by all confessors, patriarchs, bishops, and the whole world, you still will not be forgiven if you do not repent in deed (Priestmartyr Cosmas of Aetolia).
30. Readiness for worthy communion - confession of sins with a strong determination not to yield to sin and not to omit anything good that is set to be done ... Confession and Holy Communion inevitably necessary, one cleanses, the other - a bath, plaster and food ... so that Holy Communion is not in sin, it is necessary to cleanse sins by repentance (St. Theophan the Recluse).
It is one of the main means of saving spiritual sheep. Although this is not the only means, it occupies one of the central places in church life. A lot can be said about confession, something especially important for future priests. Of course, I cannot claim to have any special experience. It would be better if some real spiritual father, very experienced, taught us and shared his spiritual understanding of the problem of confessorship, but, as they say, in the absence of official paper, they write on plain; you will have to be content with my little information and opinions.
Speaking of confession, we must immediately understand that what is meant here is mainly the sacrament of repentance. The sacrament is one of the most important sacraments, and is given to us as a gift of grace, which, after His resurrection, the Lord Jesus Christ communicated to His disciples, with the words: “Receive the Holy Spirit. To whom you forgive sins, they will be forgiven; on whom you leave, on that they will remain ”(John 20, 23).
According to the general reasoning of the Church, this is that gift of knitting and loosening, which is, for the most part, the property of the priesthood. And it is understandable that the sacrament of repentance, which is associated with this gift, has lived and lives in the Church for almost two thousand years, always remaining identical to itself. This sacrament does not change, for it is the sacrament of spiritual healing, it belongs to the spiritual world. But in history, as we know, the forms of administering the sacraments can change, the order of the sacraments changes, the understanding of the sacraments changes. The sacrament itself does not change, its ontological essence remains the same. But the understanding of that essence may be different at different times. And moreover, we know that every sacrament is performed by faith, therefore, it often happens that in the sacrament the Lord predominantly gives one or the other, depending on what we ask in faith. But this does not mean that the sacrament has become different, no. For example, there is the sacrament of communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. Naturally, in this sacrament we are united with Christ. This is the main thing. But at the same time, we can always pray to God that the grace that is bestowed in this sacrament would make us joyful and kind, and another time - to cleanse our hearts from some passions, and sometimes - that the Lord would reveal to us Your will. In the sacrament we receive what we ask for. So it is in the sacrament of repentance, depending on what we seek, what we ask of the Lord, we can receive various gifts according to our faith. In different eras, the people of the church understood this sacrament in different ways and asked for different things. It is very important to understand the evolution of the understanding and performance of the sacrament.
The sacrament of repentance is one of those sacraments that in our time are most profaned.
Every sacrament is great, infinitely deep, every sacrament unites us with God, tells us an endless, new life, a hidden spiritual perspective. In this sense, every sacrament is comprehensive and incomprehensible. Hence the name: “mystery”: it is mysterious, incomprehensible to the human mind, it is comprehended by the heart to the extent that the heart has expanded. But the sacrament of repentance also has a special difficulty - a human one, because in it a person must repent. This is the main thing here.
In any sacrament, it is required that a person go towards God. In any sacrament, spiritual activity is required, but here in a special degree. Here it is necessary that a person repent, see himself, want to change, be reborn.
In our time, the sacrament of repentance has become more difficult to understand than ever. Although we all know: here is a confession, it has the goal of clearing the conscience of a penitent sinner, everything seems clear. In fact, this clarity is just apparent. In fact, there are almost no people now who could properly explain what should be here and how everything needs to be correctly understood. And not only the penitents do not understand, but also many priests do not understand.
There is a theological explanation of the sacrament of baptism, a lot has been written about the Eucharist, a lot has been said about marriage, a lot has been said about the priesthood. But little has been written about the sacrament of repentance.
The sacrament of repentance is a kind of center in which the confessor meets with the flock and has the opportunity (and should) look into the innermost corners of the human soul, where he must learn to help a person reveal himself to the end, reveal himself before God and before the confessor, hiding nothing, overcoming any crafty, hypocritical, bashful desire to hide something, to leave it secret. And at the moment of such a very special self-disclosure, the revelation of one's soul, which, of course, requires maximum trust, the priest gets the opportunity to lead the soul of the penitent, because the penitent comes and entrusts his soul to the priest. He acts like a patient who goes to the doctor does. Often we get sick, but we don’t want to go to the doctor, we hope that somehow the disease will be overcome, we will somehow get better ourselves. There are some diseases that are especially unpleasant to see a doctor. And now a person delays this moment, hoping that somehow it will manage, but the disease does not go away. And you have to go, and the doctor requires you to perform the most unpleasant procedures. A person must submit, do violence to himself, in order to defeat the disease, to stay alive. Something similar happens in the sacrament of repentance: the patient finally surrenders himself into the hands of a doctor, a surgeon, lies down on the operating table, realizing that it is enough just to tremble in his hand, and he will die, but, nevertheless, he surrenders himself to the doctor, goes risk in the hope that the surgeon will be a good doctor, that God will help him, that he will heal him.
Once I was told how they operated on two identical patients. One patient underwent a major operation and recovered from a fatal illness. And when the second one was operated on, the surgeon's hand trembled, and he cut a little more. And although the patient did not die immediately, she became seriously ill and died a month later. This case is very significant for us. All this, in a sense, is done in confession. The confessor here turns out to be both a therapist and a surgeon, and very often a psychiatrist, and, of course, he must first of all be a spiritual doctor. It's the doctor. The penitent comes and gives his soul to him. Much depends on the degree to which the penitent surrenders his soul.
There is a difference between a physical doctor and a spiritual doctor. Before he found himself sick in the doctor's office, he probably did not think that he was now being ordered, for example, to swallow some intestine, and thus examine all his insides. He did not know this, but when he arrived, they told him: “No, you will not leave here, you cannot be let go, otherwise you will die, it is necessary ...”. He can be persuaded, or he can be forced; it happens that relatives forcefully hospitalize seriously ill patients, and doctors euthanize and perform very difficult operations on a person who does not know his diagnosis ...
And in confession something similar can occur, but here it is more difficult. Here it is by no means possible to do without the will of the penitent. Everything is determined by his will, his faith. And in the hands of a confessor there are no means of violence, he must be skillful enough to convince, to dispose the penitent not to leave, not to remain as he is, sick, but to begin spiritual treatment. The confessor must be able to influence those who come to him in such a way as to raise the problem of spiritual illness with due depth, must make him feel its danger. It requires a gift that not everyone has. It requires a certain experience of communicating with people and a special ability to contact, the ability to inspire confidence.
But most of all, spirituality is required here. It is necessary that the confessor would really be turned to Heaven, to God to such an extent that the person who comes immediately feels the reality of spiritual life. So that next to him he feels that a completely new and most important side of his life is opening up here. It is necessary that he, by his prayer, by his life, be able to attract grace-filled help. That is why the best confessors have always been holy people - not psychoanalysts, psychiatrists and psychologists who are engaged in "trust services", give advice, understand the mental states of a person. They do not turn out to be the best spiritual doctors, namely, holy people who act by other methods, have grace-filled gifts, know how to pray and know how to call on God for help and manifest this grace-filled Divine power to a weak and suffering person.
Very often it happens like this: a person comes to the hospital, in appearance quite healthy and even blooming, he, say, twisted his leg. And they say to him: “You have not been to the clinic for a long time. You need to go through such and such a medical examination, examination. He does not want this, he feels healthy, but he is forced. And now, after he is examined, it turns out that he has cancer, of which he suspects nothing. Thinking that he is quite healthy, he is going to go to the mountains to travel. And they say to him, “No, you urgently need to go to the hospital, be examined, you need to urgently have an operation, you can’t postpone it. And, of course, you will not go to the mountains this year, even if the operation goes well.”
Something similar is happening in modern confession: people come who for some reason want to live a church life, start a church life or continue it, but not because they recognize themselves as mortally ill. Very often suffering people come to the priest, but often it is not so. A person wants to confess, take communion, live the church life. But he absolutely does not know how to repent for real, does not understand that he is a sinner, does not feel his sins. Such a person confines himself to formal confession. Here it is easiest for the priest to say:
- Well, you don’t have any special sins, you are not sinful in any way, I forgive, I allow, go, take communion. Thank God you didn't kill or steal anyone.
Considering how busy priests are in parishes, this is quite natural. But, unfortunately, it often happens that this particular person is in the greatest danger. Because there is an old and serious illness in him, a deadly, spiritual illness of petrified insensibility, which can lead him to spiritual death much earlier than he thinks, which can prevent him from coming next time. Revealing this illness and persuading the patient to repent is a great work, it is a great skill that requires great love and attention from the confessor.
But, in the end, in confession, the matter boils down to the fact that a person only names his sins. Sins themselves are only the result of some sinful work that is done in the human soul. Sins are some fruits on the evil tree of sinful life. For example, some poisonous bush grows, and poisonous berries appear on it, but even if we cut them off and leave the bush, the next year the same poisonous fruits will appear, that is, we most likely will not change anything in a person’s soul , only forgiving and allowing some evil deeds already committed by him. The task of the confessor is to change the soul of the penitent, you need to uproot the sinful root, but first you need to find it.
Such a root, as the holy fathers teach us, is the passion. The systematization of this teaching on the passions is given to us in many patristic writings. I will give an approximate list of them: gluttony, fornication, avarice, anger, sadness, despondency, vanity and pride. You can arrange these passions in a different order. You can also talk about voluptuousness, envy, irritability, ambition, but, in general, these are variants or kindred passions that can be called differently.
The teaching about the spiritual life of man is nowhere given in such amazing and blessed fullness as in the Holy Fathers of the East. And every Christian who wants to live a spiritual life, and even more so every pastor, must necessarily not only be familiar with patristic asceticism, must constantly be in communion with the holy fathers, constantly read them, so that their perception of spiritual life is alive in his heart . And not only to read, but also to follow them himself, to live a spiritual life, to know from personal experience what the holy fathers say. Then he will be able to say to the penitent: “Yes, the sin you committed is very (or maybe not very) heavy. But it is important not only to repent of this sin, of this crime you have committed or some kind of mistake - it is even more important to repent of the passion that has produced this sin and is constantly producing it, which has become a dangerous illness for you. You need to understand that it is this passion that needs to be eradicated from your heart and, in this sense, change your soul, your life. Only then will there be movement forward in your spiritual life, then you will draw closer to God.”
What is passion? Passion is a spiritual phenomenon; not amenable to rational explanation. The spiritual is higher than the spiritual, the spiritual is also very often irrational, and therefore it is impossible to explain everything here, it is impossible to understand with the mind, but you can understand a lot with the heart, having experience.
Based on the teachings of the Holy Fathers, it can be said that all passions act in the heart of a person in a certain mysterious way, replacing the natural spiritual activity of the soul, which was provided for by God's providence during the creation of man.
A typical example of passion is alcoholism. You know that the Psalter says: "Wine gladdens the soul of man." Wine is that wonderful drink that Christ chose for the most important sacrament - the sacrament of the Eucharist. This is the pure and beautiful drink that is used in the liturgy and added to the Blood of Christ. What can be higher than this? Wine is also used in ordinary human life, when guests gather, when there is a holiday, and everyone knows that wine is an indispensable treat at any holiday, and there is nothing wrong with that. But such use of wine can be replaced by alcoholism, it is possible to make the craving for wine painful, unnatural, and even unnatural. Then a person gradually begins to perceive wine differently, he no longer chooses high quality wine, it is important for him that it be stronger, alcohol is important for him. Now he wants only vodka, only alcohol. In the end, he no longer cares what it is, pure alcohol or something else, he is already ready to drink almost varnish. If only to get drunk and be drunk, if only to feel the effect of alcohol. Is this what, say, people experience when they come to visit for a holiday and they are poured a glass of wine? Of course not. This is where the change takes place. And it turns out that such a drunkard is ready to give up his job, lose his family for a bottle of vodka, he drinks everything in the world: his wife, and children, and his position, all his money, begins to steal, he is threatened with prison, finally, the person stops is, because there is nothing for him to eat. But he doesn't stop drinking. It often happens that such drunkards reach extreme exhaustion, wallow in ditches, but every day they find for themselves, by hook or by crook, a bottle of wine, without which they cannot live.
Satisfaction of passion becomes a human need, perverted, even stronger than natural needs. That's what's amazing. This is already a changed nature, similar to cancer, when the natural cells of the human body are replaced by other modified cells. They begin to grow faster than usual. And they grow into natural organs, replacing the natural flesh of a person. The walls of organs and vessels become painfully changed, cancerous. They still perform some functions, but they already carry in themselves. Such a substitution of normal life, natural flesh with diseased tissues leads sooner or later to death.
This is how all passion works. It replaces the natural properties of the human soul and then becomes a new, painful, perverted tissue of this soul, which begins to live by passions, instead of living by its correct, spiritual needs, spiritual inclinations. Filmed fathers they say that every passion is the action of certain demons, demons in a person. Such a substitution always takes place at the instigation of demons.
A person in his normal state lives by the grace of God, lives by God. It may happen that, having left God, a person begins to live some kind of dark “grace”. Feeling the impossibility of life without grace, he can replace it, live by this dark force. And this infected dark force, entering it, changes its composition, changes normal tissues, just as poisoned air, entering a person, begins to change everything in him: cells, blood, and all this can gradually become cancerous.
This is how passion works. And if you don’t see this passion in yourself in time, don’t start fighting it, then sooner or later it will develop in a person to terrible proportions and begin to threaten a person’s life, only not bodily, but spiritual.
It must be said that the actions of the passions, like any vice, have an amazing regularity. At first they act mysteriously and spiritually, then, at a certain stage, such a passion begins to change the soul of a person already on an emotional, spiritual level. And then it changes the bodily life. For example, alcoholism. At first it is a passion, and a person is not able to think of anything but to drink, but he is still healthy. Then comes a painful condition, then delirium tremens, then cirrhosis of the liver. And so is any passion.
Thus, passions are life with demons. And therefore very often the Holy Fathers say directly that the demon of fornication, the demon of wine-drinking, the demon of gluttony operates in a person. Very often they do not even consider it necessary to specify where the passion is and where the demon is, because in terms of meaning they are one and the same. Passion is a kind of demonic action. We, as you know, sometimes call people demon-possessed, demon-possessed. And even attempts are made to chastise, to exorcise demons. Holy people knew how to do it.
The doctrine of spiritual life, of passions, says that every person subject to the action of passion is demon-possessed, possessed to some extent. Only the measure of this obsession is different. If passion has settled in the heart of a person, forcing this person to follow himself, then the person has already become obsessed to some extent. It means that he no longer has power over himself, he fulfills the will of demons. You yourself understand that this is a very terrible path, this is the path of death, the path of spiritual death, and the priest, the spiritual father, is obliged, as a spiritual doctor, to help everyone who comes to see the passions in himself, must point out these passions, teach him to fight them, convince repentant that it is necessary. Like a doctor, seeing an unhealthy complexion in a person, he can say: “You know, you need to get checked. You may have tuberculosis." And he will say to another: "You need to check your liver, maybe you have gallstones." To understand, to see, to explore the soul of a person, to explain to the penitent his condition and to give him a remedy is the duty of a priest.
In our time at confession, all this very rarely happens. As a rule, confession is turned into something else. “I forgive, I permit,” even the priest cannot read the prayers of permissiveness to everyone. One very worthy priest told me:
I asked:
- How is it: break it?
“Well, don’t you know, elderly priests almost always have some kind of tongue twister, they can’t pronounce some words already, they reach a certain point, they say this same tongue twister and further. He has already broken his tongue, he can no longer speak, because he repeats the same formula a thousand times, he is always in a hurry, and there is just some kind of stuttering from this.
In the atmosphere of such a "breaking" language, our church life and our confession very often pass. However, if we do not know how it should be, then we will never improve and never strive in the right direction. We will go away to no one knows where, if no one tells us where is the only, true, correct direct path.
Speaking about confession, it must be said that different sins, different passions require completely different treatment and a different approach. And here it would be appropriate to talk about what is called the typology of sinners. You can never schematize people and you can’t divide all people into some exact groups: this one, that one, trying to put everyone on the shelves. But still, just as one can systematize illnesses, one can also find here some gradations that will help the shepherd navigate in that sea of people, which very often threatens to swallow him up.
So, bearing in mind the typology of sinners, we can say: a very special part in pastoral work is children. Many of you have your own children, some of you are teachers, you yourself understand that you need to have a special approach to children, a special experience of working with children. Children in confession are a joyful and at the same time very difficult phenomenon. Joyful, because, thank God, they do not have serious sins, as a rule, small children do not yet have such strong passions, although very often there are already highly developed passions. Even if some passions are already obviously active in them, nevertheless, misconduct sometimes causes a smile more: the child comes up and repents, says that he has sinned grievously, did not listen to his mother, did something “wrong”. Sometimes, after the terrible confessions that one has to hear, there comes a feeling of relief and joy that there are still such pure children's souls in which, in general, everything is fine. But you can't say that to a child. You can't say:
- You, my dear, go, everything is fine with you, you have nothing to confess.
It is necessary to find a common language with the child, it is not so easy. Very often, people begin to pretend, talk to a child in some kind of fake "childish" language, begin to somehow imitate child psychology and thus try to create the illusion of mutual understanding. Children, having a pure soul, are very sensitive to any falsehood. And they will not accept a priest who is false. Such a priest will not help this child. He won't instill confidence in him. Or he will create in his soul an image of something completely wrong, deceitful, an image that is very dangerous and harmful in the future.
A priest must always be simple, must always be himself with all people. But especially with children. He should not imitate some kind of comrade, not flirt with the little ones, as happens during children's games. He must be completely serious, he must be a father or a grandfather, he must talk to a child like an adult with a small one. But say things that the child understands. The child does not need any reasoning, he does not need any very complex explanations, but he needs to simply and seriously explain what is bad in his life, he needs to feel, understand that doing this is bad. But it is much more important that he should feel love in a priest, confessor, feel that warmth, that light that gives the grace of God.
He will not understand this with his mind, but if he immediately feels it, then for him the priest will become a beloved being, and he will always want to come and say everything that he has done wrong, and he will feel everything with his heart, although he may not realize anything. Then the child will repent with tears, and will correct himself, and will work, and will strive for the one who touched his soul with warmth and loving hand. With a child, in this sense, it is much easier than with an adult. There is no need to explain much if there is true love. If there is no love, if the priest does not have the opportunity to enter the life of a child, then nothing will come of it. Then confession will be a waste and possibly a harmful waste of time. Everything can turn into a formality and the child will not understand, but will feel that in the church some kind of formalism is required of him. He will treat this as children at school treat an annoying “teacher”: well, you need to do arithmetic, some lesson to answer ... In fact, this child is convinced that he does not need any arithmetic, because this belief was instilled in him by the teacher because the teacher doesn't need it. And since the teacher does not need him, it means that he does not need all that this teacher brings with him. Let it be arithmetic, let it be reading or drawing, it doesn't matter, everything is not necessary.
This scheme also applies here. If the child does not feel that the priest needs him, that he is dear to the priest, that the priest loves him, then everything that the priest will say or do, even the church, the temple will not be needed by him.
Now there are special difficulties with children, because there are children who come to church from unbelieving families. They were brought up from birth without faith in God. You need to teach them everything, and very often it turns out that a child in his family is completely alone. In the family, he cannot learn anything from anyone, ask anything from anyone, and then, growing up, he begins to teach his parents the faith. This happens very, very often now. And, of course, the priest should especially strengthen such a child, for he is alone in front of adults. So dad, mom and grandparents let him go to church. But when he comes from church and says that you need to fast, but they don’t understand why, when he says that you need to pray, or starts to pray, these grandmothers or parents look at him like he’s crazy and start: “You won’t go there, what are you doing?” How can a child resist adults, before the authority of parents? How will he stand, how will he defend his faith, what he brought from the church? Only if the priest supports him, if he enters his life and gives him his strength, gives him the necessary authority, if he inspires him with confidence, faith, if the child can say: “No, you don’t know, but the priest is better knows you." Now, if he can feel it and say it, then he will survive. The priest must help him with his behavior, his love.
But much more difficult problems arise in another case: when children grow up in a family of believers. This is the problem I can't deal with. This is perhaps the most difficult and relevant for us.
Children raised in believing families eventually get bored with what their parents offer them. Parents and the priest should be ready for this. Having become accustomed to everything church, as to the usual, everyday, as to what is imposed by the elders along with many other things, which is unpleasant, uninteresting, but necessary, they begin not quite consciously to reject all this. Such children begin to show some kind of centrifugal energy. They want something new for themselves, they want to comprehend some ways of life they have not explored, and everything that their mother, or grandmother, or father says, all this already seems insipid. Such children very easily find shortcomings in church people, who begin to seem to them hypocrites, boring moralists. Very often they no longer see anything bright enough in church life. Such a vector, such an orientation from the church makes them essentially incapable of perceiving the grace of God. Participating in the sacraments, even in communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, essentially speaking, they do not experience anything, they turn out, oddly enough, in childhood, incapable of experiencing the communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ as a union with God, as a meeting with God. For them, this is one of the usual, Sunday, festive states. For them, the church often becomes a club where they can meet and talk with each other. Here they can agree on something interesting, wait impatiently for the service to end and together they will run away somewhere in secret from their parents into the world around them, at least not the church one.
Sometimes it's worse: they like to play pranks in church, even that happens, or make fun of different people who are here in church, sometimes even priests. If they know how to do something, if they are engaged in a church choir, then they will discuss with great pleasure how they sing today and - without end and edge, all sorts of ridicule at the choirs, at different singers, who sings how, who hears something, who what can, who understands what. They always feel like little professionals who are able to appreciate all this. And in such scoffing they can pass the whole liturgy and the whole vigil. They may completely cease to feel the holiness of the Eucharistic canon. But it won’t hurt, when they take out the Chalice, to become the first, or maybe not the first, on the contrary, let the little ones go ahead and very decorously approach the Chalice, take communion, then just as decorously depart, and after three minutes they are already free, everyone has already forgotten and again indulge in what is truly interesting. And the moment of communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ ... this is all familiar to them, everything is known, all this is of little interest.
It is easy to teach children to always look Orthodox: go to services, first let the younger ones go to the Chalice, give way. They can do it all, and that's good, of course. It's nice to see such well-behaved children. But this does not mean at all that at the same time they live a spiritual life, that they truly pray to God, that they seek communion with God. This does not at all mean striving for a real union with the grace of God.
According to their way of life, difficulties arise at confession. A child who, from a young age (usually from the age of seven), comes to confession, receives communion very often according to tradition. For example, in our church, children take communion at every liturgy they are brought to, or to which they come on their own. In fact, it turns out once a week, sometimes more often. Confession for them is at first very interesting and desirable, because it seems to them that when they confess, it means they are a certain adulthood, that they have already become big. And a five-year-old child really wants to start confessing as soon as possible. And his first confessions will be very serious. He will come and say that he does not obey his mother, that he beat his sister, or that he did his homework badly, or prayed badly to God, and he will say all this very touchingly, seriously. But very soon, literally in a month or two, it turns out that he is completely used to this, and then whole years go by, when he comes up and says: “I don’t obey, I’m rude, I’m lazy.” This is a short list of common childhood sins, very generalized. He blurts them out instantly to the priest. A priest who is tormented by confession beyond all measure naturally forgives and resolves it in half a minute, and all this turns into a terrifying formality, which, of course, harms the child more than helps.
After several years, it turns out that for such a church child it is no longer clear at all that he should somehow work on himself. He is not even capable of experiencing a real sense of repentance at confession. It is not difficult for him to say that he has done badly. He says it quite easily. Just like if you bring a child to the clinic for the first time and force him to undress in front of the doctor, then he will be embarrassed, he will be unpleasant. But, if he is in the hospital and every day he has to lift his shirt so that the doctor listens to him, then in a week he will do it completely automatically. It won't evoke any emotion in him. So here. Confession no longer causes any feelings in the child. The priest, seeing this, finds himself in a very difficult position. He does not know how to deal with this, what to do so that the child comes to his senses.
There are some very striking examples when a child not only does not obey, is lazy and offends the younger ones, but he is blatantly outrageous. For example, at school he interferes with the whole class, in the family he is a living example of a negative for all younger children, and he terrorizes the family simply frankly. Then he begins to behave ugly in society: swear, smoke. That is, he has sins that are completely unusual for church families. However, the priest does not know how to bring him to his senses. He tries to talk to him, tries to explain to him:
“You know it’s not good, it’s a sin.
Yes, he has known all this well for a long time, he knows perfectly well that this is a sin. He is even able to tense up for five minutes and say:
- Yes, yes, I will try, I won't do it again ...
And you can't say he's lying. No, he doesn't lie. He will actually say it in the usual way, just as before dinner he can read the Lord's Prayer more or less seriously in one minute, but no more. After this habitual “Our Father” has passed, he again lives outside of prayer. So here. He can say something so that later he is allowed to take communion, And in a day or two he returns to his rails and continues to live the same way he lived. Neither confession nor communion bear fruit in his life.
In addition, the priest notices that the more excited he begins to talk to this child more attentively, more seriously, the faster his funds are exhausted. And he will lay out almost everything he can, but he will not reach the goal. The child "eats" all this very quickly and then lives the same way as he lived. We give him stronger medicines, he absorbs them all, but they do not affect him. He is not sensitive to these drugs, he does not perceive anything. This is such a degree of petrification of conscience that is simply amazing. He refuses; with a believing child, the priest can no longer find any adequate language. He starts looking for another way, he gets angry with the child. But as soon as he starts to get angry, contact with him is completely lost. And such a child often says: “I won’t go to him anymore, to this father Ivan. Well, why is he always angry and here they are angry with me and there they are angry with me ”...
You see, this problem is one of the most difficult for a confessor. Here you need to think very hard about what you need to achieve here, what you need to strive for. It seems to me that we should strive to delay the beginning of confession as long as possible. Some naive mothers (there are a lot of them), if a child misbehaves at six years old, say:
“Batiushka, confess him so that he can begin to repent, maybe it will be better.”
In fact, the sooner we start confessing him, the worse it is for him. It must be remembered that it is not in vain that the Church does not charge children with their sins until they are seven years old (and earlier it was much longer). Children cannot be fully responsible for everything in the same way as adults. Moreover, their sins, as a rule, are not mortal. They just misbehave. And it is better to allow them to take communion without confession than to profane the sacrament of repentance, which they are not able to truly perceive due to their small age.
You can confess such a sinner once every seven years, and then at eight years, and again at nine. And delay the beginning of regular frequent confession as long as possible, so that confession would by no means become habitual for the child. This is not only my opinion, this is the opinion of many experienced confessors.
There is another very important limitation. It may be that such children, who are obviously suffering from habituation to the shrine, should also be limited in the sacrament of communion. In this case, it is better that the children take communion not every week, then communion for the child will become an event. I will tell you about my personal experience. When I was little (it was still Stalin's time), the question was this: if I go to church all the time, then the schoolchildren who live nearby, my classmates, will definitely see me, they will report this to the school, and then, most likely, they will put my parents, and I will be kicked out of school. I grew up in a believing family, and my parents were believers from birth, among our relatives almost all were in prison, my grandfather was in prison three times, in prison and died: so there was a real danger, it was often impossible to go to church. And I remember my every visit to the church. This was a great event for me. And, of course, there was no question of being naughty there ... If you want, I went to church a few times in my childhood. It was very difficult, so it was always a huge celebration. I remember very well what a great event the first confession was for me. Then the second one (probably in a year), in general, during my entire childhood I went to confession several times, just as I received communion several times during my entire childhood. For many years I simply did not take communion or took communion extremely rarely, each time I had to suffer. Communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, and in adulthood, I experience as a great event for myself. And it has never been otherwise. And, of course, I thank God that the Lord did not let me get used to the shrine, get used to the church, to church life.
Ironically, the conditions of persecution that prevented so many from being believers were more favorable to those who were still in the church. Now it's not like that. I will say that my mother taught me to pray from birth, as soon as I remember myself, I remember that I prayed to God every day in the morning and in the evening. I remember that she taught me to read "Our Father" and "Virgin Mother of God", and I read these prayers almost to adulthood. And then another “I believe” was added and a few words of my own, when I commemorated my relatives and relatives. But here is this: morning prayers and evening - I did not read in childhood until quite late, that is, I began to read them when I wanted to do it myself, when it seemed to me that my prayer was not enough, I wanted to look at church books, and I saw morning and evening prayers there and he discovered them for himself, found and began to read at his own request.
I know that this is not the case in many families these days. Now, on the contrary, parents try to get their children to pray as early as possible. And the aversion to prayer arises in surprisingly quick terms. I know how one wonderful old man wrote directly on this occasion already big baby: “You don’t need to read so many prayers, read only“ Our Father ”and“ Virgin Mary, rejoice, ”and don’t read anything else, nothing else is needed.”
It is necessary that the child receives the holy, the great in such volume in which he is able to digest. What is the reason? My mother was raised in a believing family. And she taught me the way she was taught. She remembered her childhood and taught her children from memory. As it usually happens in life. And then there was a break in the continuity of spiritual experience and several generations fell out of church life. Then they acquire church life already in adulthood. When adult girls or women come, they are already given, of course, big rules, they repent for real. And when they get married and have children, they give their children everything that they once gave them when they came to church. Obviously this is happening. They do not know how to bring up children, because no one brought them up in the life of the Church during their childhood. They try to raise their children the way they raise adults. And this is a fatal mistake that leads to the most deplorable results.
I remember very well one friend of my mother from a close church family who had many children. And I remember that she took her children to church from childhood. But how? She usually brought the children to the moment of communion, or very shortly before communion. They entered the church, where they had to behave absolutely reverently, there they had to walk on tiptoe, fold their hands, take communion and immediately leave the church. She did not allow them to turn their heads in church, not to say a single word. It's a shrine, it's the holy of holies. This is what she instilled in her children and they all grew up as deeply religious people.
This is not how we do it now. Our mothers want to pray to God, they want to stand all night, but the children have nowhere to go. Therefore, they come to church with their children, let them go here, and pray to God themselves. And they think that someone else should take care of the children. And the children run around the temple, around the church, act outrageously, fight in the temple itself. Mothers pray to God. The result is an atheistic upbringing. Such children will easily grow up as revolutionaries, atheists, immoral people, because they have a dead sense of sacredness, they have no reverence. They don't know what it is. Moreover, they knocked out the highest - the shrine in its highest expression. Even the church, even the liturgy, even the communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ - nothing is holy for them. What other authority will then be able to turn them to the church is unknown.
That is why I think it is very important to limit children in their attendance at Church, in the number of visits, and in the time of visits. And maybe in communion, in confession. But this is very difficult, because as soon as we begin to take communion without confession, indignation will rise, they will say: “How is it, is it possible to take communion without confession after seven years?”
And now the disciplinary norm, which was introduced for adults, and which also has some irregularities in itself, turns out to be fatal for children. It is necessary to turn the lives of children in such a way that they deserve their church life. If you don't suffer, then you deserve it. You have to work hard to be able to go to church.
It often happens that a child does not want to go to church, but his mother grabs his hand and pulls him along:
No, go to church!
He says:
- I don't want to take communion.
— No, you will take communion!
And this already causes a complete disgust for everything in the child. The child begins to blaspheme and blaspheme right in front of the Chalice and beat the mother with his hands and feet and tear from the Chalice. And it should be just the opposite. Child says:
- I want to take communion!
And the mother says:
— No, you will not receive communion, you are not ready, you have behaved badly this week.
He says:
“I want to confess.
And she says:
— No, I won't let you, you can't go to church, you have to earn it.
It happens that children are taken from school to go to a church holiday. And it seems to be good and I want them to join the holiday and the grace of God. I have children myself, I do it myself, so I understand this very well. But here again there is a very big problem. It's only good when the child deserves it. And if he can always skip school and go to a holiday, then for him this holiday is already becoming a holiday because he skips school, and not because it is, say, or, or, because today he does not need to go to school and do homework. That is, it is all devalued and profaned to no end. And this is unacceptable. Perhaps it is better, more beneficial for the soul of a person, for the soul of a child, to say:
- No, you will not be at the party, you will go to school and study.
Let him better cry in his school that he did not get to the Annunciation in the temple. This will be more useful for him than coming to the temple and not appreciating anything in the temple, not feeling anything. Everything in a child's life should be rethought from this point of view.
And confession should not be so much persuasion, the priest should not so much shame as he should put everything in its place. He needs to take the liberty, contrary to his parents, to say:
- No, let your child not go to church yet.
Calmly, do not get angry, do not persuade, but say:
“Children like that bother us in church. Let your child come to church, take communion every few months…
When a young man wants to evade the army, then his parents try in every possible way to save him, to save him. And the priest says:
— No, let him go to serve. This will be better for him.
So here. The child must be given harsh conditions so that he understands that the church is an elusive goal for him.
At confession, the confessor should communicate with the child with great love. Do not be a boring, strict teacher, try to convey to the child that he understands him, understands all his difficulties, I must tell him:
- That's all, of course. It's really hard for you, you really can't cope. But what does this mean? This means you don't have to take communion every week. And if so, then come back in a month or two. Maybe you will come differently.
It is necessary to talk with the child quite seriously and force the parents to put all this in its place.
Church can only be a great, joyful, festive, and difficult experience. Church life and confession should become desirable for the child, so that the child perceives communication with his spiritual father as something very, very important for him, joyful and difficult to achieve, very long-awaited. This will be so if the priest manages to find personal contact with the child at the right time.
Very often you have to wait out the transitional age, you have to reach the age of 14, up to 15, up to 16 years. Not always, but it happens. Especially with boys, they can be impossible fools, and it is simply impossible to talk seriously with them. It is necessary to reasonably limit their stay in the church and participation in the sacraments. And then the time will come when you can say:
- Well, now you're big, you've grown up, let's talk seriously ...
And there is some kind of common life with the confessor, personal relationships on a serious level, which become very valuable for a teenager.
All of the above about children can be summarized very briefly. Under no circumstances should confession become simply a part of church life for children. If this happens, then this is a profanity, this is a very difficult problem to fix. Since we do not always have the opportunity to do what we think is necessary, we must be in line, and in our church, in fact, general confession is allowed, we can explain to the child that if he knows that he does not have serious sins, then this since he must be content with the permissive prayer. Now let's move on to a similar problem with adults. For a priest, it is a great, great joy when some sinner or a sinner comes, after some misfortunes or life catastrophes that forced them to reconsider their lives and gain faith. He or she usually comes with very serious sins and weeps at the lectern about his sins. And the priest feels that this person has come to repent for real, and now his new life begins. Such repentance is indeed a holiday for a priest. He feels how the grace of God passes through him and renews this person, gives birth to him for a new life. It is in such cases that the priest understands what the sacrament of repentance is. This is really the second baptism, this is really the sacrament of renewal and union with God.
Such cases do happen, and not so rarely. Especially when adults come.
But then the person becomes an ordinary Christian. He began to go to church often, often go to confession and take communion, and over time he gets used to it.
Or maybe this is the same child who grew up in a believing family, and now has become an adult. Maybe it's some good chaste girl. Good, bright, look at her - a feast for the eyes. But at the same time, she does not live a spiritual life at all. He does not know how to repent, he does not know how to confess, he does not know how to take communion, he does not know how to pray. She reads some rule of her own, often takes communion, but at the same time she does not know how to do it as she should. She has no spiritual work.
Such people, of course, do not behave like children. They don't run around the temple, they don't talk, they don't fight.
They have a habit of upholding all services. If from childhood, then it is already quite easy, it becomes a need. And you can stand like this all your life in the church and be a good man generally. Don't do anything wrong, don't kill, don't spy and don't steal. But there may be no spiritual life at the same time.
You can go to church all your life, take communion, go to confession, and still not really understand anything, not start living a spiritual life, work on yourself. This happens very, very often. And, thank God, this is hindered by sorrows, which are quite a lot in our lives. Some difficult experiences, even serious sins, falls are providentially allowed in a person's life. No wonder there is such a proverb: “If you don’t sin, you won’t repent.”
It turns out that a person who grew up in a church often discovers for himself what true repentance is only when he somehow sins grievously. Until then, he had gone to confession a thousand times, but he never understood, never felt what it was like. This, of course, does not mean that one should wish everyone to fall into grave, mortal sins. This means the need for our church life to be very prominent. It must necessarily be something difficult for a person to start working internally. And the task of the confessor is to make sure that a person works, works, so that he does not just carry out some of his usual household scheme, serving some holidays, some services. It is necessary that he had a goal, so that he achieves this goal. Each person should have his own program of spiritual life.
It is very difficult, especially in our time, when the priest actually cannot cope with the huge number of people who come to him. Remember that before the revolution in Moscow, which was limited by outposts, there were 600 churches and, accordingly, more than 1,000 priests. Now in Moscow, which has become ten times larger, there are about 300 churches and about 400 priests. There used to be a million inhabitants in Moscow. Now 10 million. Of course, the opportunities now for the priest are quite different. He can't cope with such a huge influx of people. And, nevertheless, it is necessary to look for some kind of active inclusion in the life of each member of the Church.
For our Church, this is very unusual, untraditional. In our country, as a rule, it is already quite different: the priest stands at the lectern and listens. And then he will take it and say: “Well, don’t do that anymore, this is not good.” Then he will say: “I forgive and allow” ... Well, maybe he will add something else, and that’s it.
And even the elders. They mostly listen, keep silent, and then with a few remarks they somehow correct and let go. Some passivity on the part of the confessor is traditional with us. It must be remembered that among the true elders it was only outward passivity. Real elders are people of great spiritual achievement. When a person approached them, they began to pray for him first of all, i.e. immediately actively acted spiritually. And they inevitably included this person in a completely different, spiritual life. Everyone who was with the elder Ambrose or the Monk Seraphim was left with a sense of a grandiose event in his life. Those. The outwardly passive behavior of the confessor did not contradict the active inclusion of the newly arrived person in a new life, here a revelation took place for him.
In our time, when a confessor stands at confession and his spiritual children approach him, his goal is to impress, surprise them, some other goal must be achieved here. A priest must learn, at least briefly, but in such a way to interact with his spiritual child so that he goes to confession, in a sense, like a difficult exam, when we go and do not know whether we will succeed or fail. Interaction with the confessor here should be very serious, deep:
- And how are you doing now - did it work or not? Last time you repented about this. Now can you say that you have overcome your evil skill? Did it work or not?...
A priest should teach you how to confess.
Getting used to the shrine, getting used to confession is one of the most terrible evils in our church life. And this happens because, firstly, there is no possibility, no conditions for proper confession, and secondly, we do not have a correct understanding of what confession is for those who live a constant church life, who often take communion.
There is such an approach - to cancel confession, to take communion without confession. This is how they do it in the West, in France, in America. People go to confession once a year or once during Lent, and the rest of the time they take communion without confession. There they tried to return to the ancient norm, when you need to take communion often, but rarely go to confession. It seems to be formally correct. And one could expect, it seemed, good results. But no. It only got worse because people stopped going to confession altogether. They now come to confession once a year. The priest begins to ask them something, and they say:
Why are you asking me? I am not guilty of anything. Yes, I don't do anything. Why are you asking me questions...
Maybe not in such words, but in such, approximately, tone. A person no longer understands at all why one needs to confess. There, confession is completely lost.
It turned out that it was mechanically impossible to return to the first centuries of Christianity. The fact is that in the first centuries there was a different level of spirituality. Then there were persecutions. If we begin to take communion often and not confess, then a completely new and terrible result is achieved. This is not the way out.
But what we have now is not a way out, because our frequent confession is a phenomenon of the twentieth century. It has never been in the history of the Church. IN ancient church Communion often, but confession very rarely. At first it was once in a lifetime: when a person fell away from the Church through the commission of some grave sin.
In recent centuries, obligatory confession was introduced in Russia as a norm before each communion. And then they began to receive communion very rarely. Again, communion once a year, during Great Lent - it was an event. It was necessary to fast, fast for a week, then it was necessary to read prayers, many canons and akathists, and then only come to communion. And for the priest it was always difficult, but still it happened only in Great Lent, and then again a long time of the year, when there are actually no communicants.
There are also priests who say on an ordinary day, going to confession:
Why so many accomplices? What are you, birthday people? I will only give communion to birthday people.
This tradition is still alive.
We have decided to take communion often, and we cannot refuse the norm learned in Russia to confess before each communion. From this a completely new phenomenon arose: frequent confession. This has practically never happened in history. Unfortunately, it leads to the profanation of confession. A person cannot often go to confession, because if he lives a normal church life, then his frequent confession cannot be the confession that is called the second baptism. There can be no union with the Church if a person has not separated. The very meaning of this sacrament changes, and confusion arises. This frequent confession can be filled with content only if it is replaced by the revelation of thoughts, which took place in ancient monasteries and was accepted as the norm. Then it was not a confession, thoughts were received by the abba, who often did not have a holy order. It had nothing to do with communion and was not called a sacrament. It was an educational moment, a moment of spiritual growth. Now something similar has been introduced into the sacrament of penance, and often gives dubious results.
We need to find a way out. And there is only one way out. Unable to cancel confession before communion, we must retain the prayer of permissiveness. Ask people to repent of their sins, but do not confuse this with a detailed confession.
On the other hand, the priest must watch over his spiritual children and confess them in this sense:
How are you moving in your spiritual life? What do you have new? Are you working on yourself or not? If not, then there is nothing to talk about. And if you work, then it should be visible.
Very quickly those who replace the spiritual life, replace confession with who knows what, are weeded out here. Very few people remain, those who really work, who are willing and able to work, who want to live a spiritual life.
Their confession is quite clear, there are few particularly difficult problems here. Here the priest is easy. If a person works and tries, he does not have serious sins, but he will constantly repent of some of his sins. And this repentance will be effective. It will give results. It will be seen that he is working, that the grace of God is working in him.
Much more difficult and painful for the priest is another case, more common. When a person cannot begin to live the spiritual life. He tries, he wants, but he does not understand what spiritual work is.
In the life of the Church, there are established customs that do not always fully agree with the correct understanding of the sacraments, the correct understanding of spiritual life, and in some cases are even harmful in a certain way. We will not be able to cope with this problem in a jiffy, because here we are dealing with a long "church" practice. Here we will definitely come across a certain understanding of church life, which has already become, as it were, normative and carries the authority of many people who have a high rank or a certain experience in church life. All this is very, very difficult. But gradually this problem should be solved anyway, because the existing unstable situation should be resolved. The result of this instability can be disappointment, even catastrophe, if we do not think, if we do not try in advance to direct the development of today's church life in the right direction.
The confessor must also be a teacher. To some extent, he must have a pedagogical flair, have a pedagogical task. The lack of such a pedagogical instinct, talent, gift, knowledge, experience leads to the fact that the priest loses his spiritual children. He loses them not only for himself personally, but also for the Church. They may remain for a long time, perhaps even forever, believing people, but they will be lost to the Church. There were a lot of such people in the last century, at the turn of the century. Most often these were believers who prayed a little all their lives. But they did not understand at all why they needed to go to church, why the liturgy was needed, why they needed to take communion, why they needed to confess. They had a certain moral code close to Christian and an abstract understanding that "God exists", a certain religious ideology. But there was no real religious life, church life. They lost it because this life compromised itself in pre-revolutionary educational institutions. Indeed, very often in pre-revolutionary gymnasiums and in all closed educational institutions, such as the Cadet Corps, or, for example, the Institute of Noble Maidens, there were house churches. And all pupils and pupils had to constantly take part in divine services. They had the Law of God, and they had to know very well all the disciplines that were provided for by the Law of God. Very often they studied excellently and remembered a lot of troparia until old age, knew the service, knew the texts of the Holy Scriptures. But as soon as they received a diploma and left the educational institution, they no longer went to church, because church life was compromised in their eyes.
One can dare to say that even the revolution, with all its tragic consequences, was to a large extent due to the dechurching of the Russian people. Dechurching, which occurred as a result of the transformation of church life into church life, as a result of the decline of grace-filled life, grace-filled communion with God before the performance of church rites. People have ceased to feel what "sacrament" means, they have ceased to find a meeting with God in the sacrament.
Here, of course, the role of the confessor, the priest is key. And his responsibility is enormous. Woe to the priest who does not understand this. Woe to the one who does not seek a way out of this situation. To the one who easily agrees to the profanation of a churchly, grace-filled life in the eyes of a child or an adult, and, obeying the stream of fuss, the pressure of time and the pressure of the surrounding world, gives up his position, the burning of his heart gives in exchange for well-being. He somehow makes ends meet and therefore agrees to give up the most important things.
Unfortunately, even good priests very often find themselves in this position, they find themselves in captivity of circumstances. They cannot cope with the difficulties that time creates. But we must remember that a priest, confessor, should never be in captivity. He must be free, and only God's slave, no one else's. He must have a free conscience. He must always say what he thinks and do what his conscience tells him to do. He should never be disingenuous, hypocritical. This alone will attract many hearts to him, both adults and children. He must always, with all sincerity, with all the burning of his heart, answer today's questions, to the spiritual need that confronts him today. He must hear, see the troubled heart, childish or youthful, and find an opportunity to give an answer, to lend a hand, to help. It should never be formal.
Of course, not only the priest is here, but also parents, first of all, and teachers, and catechists, all should try together to preserve the children's generation for the Church. In our time, this problem is extremely acute. We rejoice now that many children are coming to church. But, I assure you, it is very difficult for the Church to keep them, it requires a great feat. And it is not surprising if later it turns out that most of these children leave the Church, because what we are now giving them in the Church is absolutely not enough for them, it does not fully meet the needs of their souls. This does not open the door to spiritual life for them, does not lead them truly to God, but on the contrary, often hinders their upward movement.
The problems that arise with adults are similar, but have their own specifics. We can cite a number of characteristic cases typical of our time.
One of them is people who have come to church recently. A person comes to church for the first time. It can be a young man or a young woman, it can be elderly people. As a rule, they know very little. As a rule, they are already disfigured by a godless life, they have behind them a whole heap of terrible mortal sins. Perhaps they sinned with fornication, theft ... Perhaps they seriously insulted their parents, slandered someone, renounced the truth, lied. Perhaps they were looking for and finding some false ways of spiritual life, they were fond of witchcraft, magic, spiritualism ... Perhaps these people, having entered into marriage, cheated on their husband or wife, had abortions. Some of them just sink to the bottom, some of them are drunkards, drug addicts.
Naturally, the first confession is an extremely difficult task for a priest. This is truly a feat. Typical situation: Sunday (usually such people come on Sunday), there are a lot of people in the church. As always, very little time is allotted for confession. It begins at the time of the hours and it is necessary to finish the confession as soon as possible, at least before the removal of the Chalice. It's no more than an hour and a half. It is practically impossible to have time to confess everyone. If a hundred people stand and confess for one minute, then it is already an hour and forty minutes. And there, maybe not a hundred, but two hundred people. It means that there can be no normal confession. What is a confessor to do? Now, as a rule, the confessor conducts a general confession, very short, very formal. And I myself heard how the venerable archpriests, rectors say:
- All that I listed at the general confession, you no longer repeat, please; if any of you have a sin that I haven't named, then you can say it very briefly. And the rest can simply come up, and, bowing their heads, receive a permissive prayer.
The priest manages to let everyone pass under the epitrachelion under such conditions, and then they go to take communion. If among such people there is a person who came for the first time, then it is very likely that he will not come to church again, because he realized that “all priests are deceivers”, that profanity is being committed here, here formalism, there really is no one here they listen, the priest has no time to speak with the people, perhaps he does not want to. He will fit quite formally under the epitrachelion, then also formally to the Chalice, he will not feel anything and will leave.
The priest must understand that in doing so, he is committing a crime. But you can do otherwise, explaining to the confessors:
— Those of you who have taken communion often, have recently gone to confession, live a church life and have no serious sins on their consciences, let them go ahead and be content with short confession. Quite short. Maybe even a permissive prayer...
This is especially true for those who are well known to the priest. Those who have grave sins those who have not confessed, or have come to confession for the first time in general, they can by no means be content with such a short confession. They should wait and they should be talked to in detail. And it turns out that all those who came for the first time or have a grave sin on their conscience remain. Naturally, they do not have time for the Chalice, the liturgy ends, and the priest has to stay or agree on a time and confess them in detail.
It is extremely important that the priest listen carefully to such a sinner without condemning him. So that the sinner understands that he will not condemn a confessor who will treat him with evangelical love, will accept his confession with heartache and try to help him and pray for him.
It is very important for him to feel and understand that sins such as his cannot be formally resolved, that what is really required of him is not a formal enumeration of his sins, but repentance. It is necessary for him to have contrite heart, so that he really mourns his plight and wants to ask God for forgiveness so that he returns to Father's house and had a firm intention to start a new life and never return to the old sins.
The priest needs to help him with sufficient sensitivity to say all his sins, not formally, not coldly, not in a legalistic tone asking:
— Did you do it? And did you do this?
He should help to open his heart to a person. Not just assign him some legal penance:
“Since you had abortions, it means you have not been allowed into the temple for 10 years, or 15 years. Or a hundred bows to you every day.
Such formal penances, in a person who has come to church for the first time, give rise to the feeling in the soul that some kind of insane fanatics are operating here, in the church, that there is no point in looking for a spiritual doctor.
It is necessary that the penance be such that will help a person to repent, pray, feel and understand that he has sinned, and if he works hard, he can come to church and begin his spiritual path.
In our time, such penances are often not punishments. We usually say that it is necessary first of all to read the Gospel. And very often I say that it is necessary to read not the entire New Testament, but the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, which is easier to read. The epistles of the Apostle Paul are more complicated, they can be put aside, and the first time you do not require them to be read. But everyone can read the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. Sometimes you can give some other penance, you can give some book to read, you can say that a person prays some kind of prayer, short, understandable. To make him do a few bows. It depends on the state of his soul, how he perceives this penance. It is necessary that he accept it with joy, so that he wants to fulfill it, so that it does not arouse his protest. If you manage to do this, if a person feels warmth, if he feels love, if he feels that God is merciful to him, that it was in the Church that he found this mercy, then he will definitely come, he will definitely fulfill and really begin his new life. It is here that the priest most of all feels what the sacrament of repentance is. Here is what is called the second baptism. Such an incident convinces the priest that the sacrament of repentance has not disappeared from the life of the Church.
For a certain time, such a sinner (or a sinner) comes to church on the wings of joy, really begins to live in a completely new way, reads church books with spiritual thirst, begins to pray to God, partakes of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, approaches the priest with shining eyes. From the fact that a new life has really begun, he experiences the greatest happiness. This is a joyful time. Sometimes you have to hear:
- So I prayed and pray, I feel so much of everything, and now the prayer itself is going on in my soul, maybe this is really the very smart prayer that I heard (or read) somewhere, that now I already feel like a prayer in my soul goes on all the time.
This happens quite often, but this is not because a person has acquired mental prayer in his heart, but because he is in a state of rapture, in a state of special heart burning, when everything new easily impresses him, easily opens up to him and is perceived by his heart with a special vehemence. That's why it's all so easy. And then time inevitably passes (different for different people), sometimes very short, and church days begin.
Here we are dealing with people who have already read the Gospel, who already know that it is necessary to take communion often, who know that it is impossible to commit mortal sins, and, as a rule, do not commit them. They don’t fornicate, they don’t steal, they don’t have abortions, they don’t get drunk, they don’t inject drugs, they don’t renounce their faith, they don’t go to various psychics and sorcerers, and they don’t engage in spiritualism themselves. We can say with satisfaction that the level of their morality has risen significantly. They now have such prohibitions below which they do not fall. Now they are members of the Church and live the church life. Church, but a grace-filled life?
Unfortunately, it often turns out that the prayer that first went on in their hearts, and the time when they prayed very joyfully, and with such burning, when tears flowed from their eyes at the memory that they were sinners, but the Lord forgave them and accepted when I wanted to start a new life - all this is gone. And tears no longer shed, and prayer ceased in the heart, and now it is no longer possible to read the morning or evening rule: it has become a burden. I no longer want to read the Gospel, and spiritual literature doesn’t attract them as it used to. Even church services themselves have become familiar to them, they come to them, defend them because it is necessary, but they defend them formally, their heart is silent. They don't pray to God, they just stand.
Many of them, perhaps, came to the church and began to do something in the church: some became cleaners, others watchmen, others stand behind the candle box, the fourth became teachers of the Law of God, some became choristers on the kliros. They may have taken their place in the community. But the burning of the heart is gone. They sometimes remember this and yearn, but over time they get used to the fact that he is not there, and it seems to them that he should not be. The time of spiritual birth, childhood, is remembered only with longing, with regret. And how to return it is unknown.
Why does this happen? Because then, turning to God from a godless life, sacrificing some of their passions, addictions, breaking away from their usual sinful life, they accomplished a feat. And this feat immediately, immediately gave its rich fruits. Now their life has ceased to be a feat. She entered a certain rut and became a way of life. As soon as the feat passed from life, the spiritual fruits also disappeared. It turns out that a life of grace with God is possible only when a person lives by achievement. Without this feat, there is no spiritual, grace-filled life. What is the feat? Then it was clear. He sinned heavily - you need to repent. This is a feat. And now what a feat, when there are no serious sins?
The confessor must explain that now this feat should be different, it should be a feat of prayer, humility, love, obedience, a feat of constant struggle with one's passions, with one's pride, vanity, ambition, lust for power, irritability and with all other passions. There must be constant attention to oneself, to one's spiritual life, very exacting attention. You need to notice your every false step, repent of it, correct it. Without such a spiritual life, without spiritual work there will be no grace of God in the heart of man. And most of all, humility is needed, because "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Humility is the basis of spiritual life, humility is given through obedience, through constant patience with sorrows, through constant victory over one's pride, over one's vanity, over one's resentment.
A confessor must teach all this every day, constantly to his spiritual children. And it turns out that in a sense this is much more difficult than confessing a serious sinner who has come for the first time, who does not need to be taught, he must be listened to with love. He himself repents, he cries, only you need to show love, listen. And the sacrament is performed, he opens his soul. And this one comes and is silent. Either he simply reads his sins, or he gives a note where it is written: “I have sinned with idle talk, overeating, irritability, intemperance”, etc. And some want to confess better, they say in detail that they went into the store and looked at some thing with predilection, that they said such and such a rude word to their mother, and did or did something else. In a word, they take care of themselves in detail. And very pedantically all this is said to the priest. All this is. But the question arises - is there repentance?
Very often it turns out that there is no repentance anyway. The man traced all this so meticulously, brought it to confession, received permission from the priest from all these sins, but he cannot repent of this. This level of his spiritual life will continue to be his norm, he is stuck on this, and further from his place. He turned out to be a spiritually limited person.
They say in such cases: one is given to live a spiritual life, the other is not. Indeed, among spiritual talents there are different ones. Some are given talents, others are not. A person may not be capable of something. And so he, as he was born, so he will die. Is it the same in the spiritual life? And you can say yes, of course. There are people who are more spiritually gifted, and there are people who are less spiritually gifted. There are people for whom spiritual life is more understandable and easier, while for others it is more difficult. But the teaching of the Church says that there are no people for whom spiritual life is impossible. It may be difficult, but this very difficulty, if overcome, will give a person spiritual life. This will be a feat.
Every person can live a feat. When achievement begins, spiritual life begins. The feat can take completely different forms. But everything that is very difficult for a person, even exceeds his strength, his natural capabilities - this is a feat. When a person cannot do something, but with faith that God will help him, rushes towards this difficulty - this is a feat. As soon as a person begins to live by such a feat of faith, overcoming oneself, one's passions, spiritual life opens up for him.
The priest must be able to explain and show all this. But, alas, there are very few people who want to listen to him, follow his morals. The overwhelming majority of those who fill our churches do not want to live as a feat. They don't talk about it directly, as a rule. And sometimes they say. But more often they just don't want to. Although you explain everything, you say it many times in a row, they, nevertheless, want to somehow deceive themselves, and at the same time the priest. And so that it does not look like a deception, in order to calm your conscience. Somehow they want to find such needles' eyes, so that there would be no feat, and there would be spiritual life. To receive communion, confess, pray, be considered Orthodox, be considered good, and at the same time - no feats. This is a kind of Rubicon in human life. Whether he understands it and wants to overcome it depends on his spiritual future. And the majority stops before this Rubicon and does not want to go further.
“There are a thousand of you here, all of you are called my spiritual children. But keep in mind that in fact there can be only ten people of my spiritual children among you, and these 990 are imaginary children, they do not live a spiritual life.
You can not say this, because it is useless to say, but just know it for yourself. But no one gave the priest the right to drive them. These are not my children, but they are the children of God. And what the priest cannot do, the Lord can do. It is very likely that such a person will flounder all his life and refuse achievement, and then, at the very edge of life, some serious illness, cancer, will force him to begin spiritual achievement. And maybe in last week his life or three days, he suddenly wakes up and repents, and the Lord will open the gates of the Kingdom of God to him. Or maybe it will not be three days, but last years. Today he turns out to be so lazy, and tomorrow some kind of grief will fall on him, trouble, difficulties, and he will be forced to reconsider everything and start living differently. It no longer depends on the priest. The priest can keep this man afloat. You don’t need to drive him, but say:
“Don’t think that you are living a spiritual life. You have no spiritual life.
He must testify to this, but do not drive him away from the Chalice if he has not committed any mortal sins. Need to explain:
“It may happen that you partake of yourself in condemnation. But this is left to your responsibility, because you do not obey, you live by your mind, your conscience. But if you want to take communion, take communion.
Of course, there are a lot of pathological cases. There were always a lot of them, this is not surprising. There are more of them than ever before. Why? Because the state of sin is a pathology, not a norm. Our earthly life usually pathological. And few of us manage to overcome this pathology somehow. But she can be scary in more or less lesser degree. It is often threatening. Often the church life of a person takes on completely abnormal forms, and then the life of a priest becomes extremely difficult, sometimes even painful.
A simple example. A very good parishioner has been taking her son to church since childhood. He believes in God, but when he reached the age of eighteen, he got tired of living the church life. And he, considering himself a believer, began to get drunk, sometimes, perhaps, steal, fornicate. And his mother cries over him, persuades him, drags him to the father, and, according to old memory, he comes and repents. Yes, he sinned, again fornicated with someone. The priest persuades him, explains, and he nods his head: "Yes, yes, I understand everything, I won't do it again." The priest gives him penance, forgives, permits. After a while, he takes communion. It stays on for a while, then disappears again. If he is gone for a month or two, then he rolled again. Mom will bring him back after some time, and it turns out that he again stumbled, got drunk again - again everything is the same. And it can be endless. Mortal, grave sins, catastrophe.
What to do here? According to the ancient canons of the church, such a sinner must be excommunicated first for seven years, then for fifteen years from communion, so that he stands in the porch of the temple and does not enter the temple. Thus, church life was cleansed of such people; they were not in the church at the liturgy. Now not a single priest, even the most strict confessor, would dare to excommunicate a person from communion for ten years. And he will do it right. Life now is such that there is no moral possibility to give such penances. The church, the temple is filled with similar pathological people: drunkards, fornicators, thieves, boors, people who live, getting out of the mud all the time, and then again falling through. They seem to be walking through a swamp, jumping from bump to bump, and again failing. Now they crawl out, then they sink, and therefore it is necessary to drag them. They are pulled out onto a hummock, and, having been on this hummock for some time, at the next step they again fail. What is the fate of each of them? Whether he will drown in this swamp or crawl out by a miracle of God - no one knows.
What can a priest do here? Just pray and try to be indulgent, to forgive with love, to allow, to endure. Penances are feasible to give. For the most part, nothing is too much for such people. We have to excommunicate them from communion for a month, two, sometimes a year. But often everything has to be committed into the hands of God. There is no real desire to live a spiritual life. This is a catastrophe, pathology, which used to be an exception, has now become the norm. There are a lot of such people, the temple is filled with these people. That is why it is so often hard in the temple, the atmosphere of sin, sinful consciousness and state spreads and affects those around. There is no real faith here, not only a feat, but even a desire to live a pure life. Passions in the nude, passions, i.e. demons. These are souls captured by demons. Sometimes it happens that the demon will let go of her a little, like a cat with a mouse, in order to grab it again in a moment and strangle it again. And will such a miracle happen that the mouse will run away from its cat? But you need to help these people, you can not push them away.
For a priest, this is a very difficult case, because the priest must act as if against conscience. He must forbid, not allow, because he sees that profanation is being committed again ... But you need to remember the words of Christ: “I want mercy, not sacrifice”, the parable of the unjust steward and show unfair condescension to such sinners, pray for them, hoping that suddenly somehow the Lord will find a way to save these unfortunate souls.
The following pathology occurs mainly among women. It is the substitution of the spiritual life for the life of the soul.
Men and women are so created by the Lord that they need each other. A man's heart needs women's love, women's affection, women's softness, understanding. It's feminine. No one can share sorrows and difficulties like a loving woman. That is why marriage exists. In the same way, a woman needs support in a man. We need the masculine properties of the soul - courage, firmness, strength, strength, power, independence, fearlessness. And therefore it is natural that a man is always looking for a life partner, and a woman is looking for a companion. It's so arranged by God. But life is such that it is easier for a man to find a companion for himself than a woman for a companion. And many of them are not married and do not have a real family life, and even if they got married, in family life they receive only troubles, suffering, resentment, and even more need male support, because the husband became a tormentor, and not a loving helper, did not become a stronger half, but became a tyrant. Such women very often come to church and look for support in the priest, compensation for the masculine principle. It is quite legal, naturally, there is nothing wrong or bad in it.
A priest can and should give a woman this support and can shelter such people around him, help them live, arrange their church life. But there is a possibility of error here. A priest cannot be a husband to anyone but his mother. And not only in the sense of the flesh, but also in the sense of the soul. He can be a father, and that's a lot. Often women in the father receive the support of a man's heart. And there is much more in a spiritual father than in a father by blood. But there must certainly be such an attitude as a daughter has for her father. It's necessary. Only such an attitude can be legal.
But women very often do not catch this, or, not having spiritual caution, correct understanding, driven by nature, they strive to get something more, what they lack in life. They want the priest to be not just a father for them, not just a confessor, but something else. To make up for what they lack in their lives. This does not mean that extreme pathological case when women simply fall in love with a priest. This is also, unfortunately, often the case. But this is a completely pathological case, which I don’t even want to consider. He demands the sharpest rebuff from the priest. It's just a grave sin. This bringing into the church of adulterous passions is even more terrible than adulterous passions. When a woman falls in love with someone else's husband, it's bad. But if she falls in love with a priest or a monk, i.e. in one who has promised himself to God, it is much worse. In such severe cases, the priest just needs to drive such women away from him. But sometimes you can explain, reason, put in place and help to cope with this, as it often happens, not consciously, not quite seriously.
But I don’t want to talk about this, but about the fact that without going to such extremes, women very often strive to arrange such spiritual relations with the priest that will imitate some kind of common life. This is not necessarily falling in love, but it is some kind of spiritual comfort. They begin to demand that the priest pay attention to them, to talk to them, to communicate:
“Why didn’t you ask me something, and why did you walk past me, why do you talk to that one for a long time, but to me briefly?” And why are you so harsh with me, I'm indifferent to you? ..
Such experiences and feelings always mean that a woman has a spiritual relationship with a priest, not a spiritual one. She is looking for in him not a confessor, but compensation for her unsettled spiritual life. There may not yet be love, but there is always some partiality.
Attachment, generally speaking, is not bad, it is quite natural to love your spiritual father, This is fine. It even should be, and such love can be very strong, even the strongest in a person's life - love for a spiritual father. But the nature of this love is important. It must be the love of a daughter for a father. It must be spiritual love, for the sake of Christ. Love that sees in the priest a God-sent teacher of spiritual life. When you want to humble yourself, learn, obey, when there is a willingness to endure even harsh teaching, a strict reprimand, when there is faith that the confessor loves you, prays for you, thinks, and at the same time does not owe you anything, is not obliged to lead with you "pleasant" conversations or something like that. Such love will be both good and fruitful. And spiritual relationships, especially where resentment against a priest begins, are spiritually fruitless and harmful, they mean charm.
Charm is a Slavic word, “flattery” is translated into Russian as “lie”. Charm means self-deception. A person thinks that he is on the right path, but in fact he is on the wrong path. If he is left on this false path, he can leave and will definitely get lost and die.
It is very difficult for a priest here. Because duty dictates that he must rebuke a man, must say:
No, that's not what you need at all. You must live differently. And the relationship should be completely different.
He says, and she is offended:
“Yeah, well, don’t tell her that. You love her, but you don't love me.
She does not require that there be love, but she just needs spiritual affection, spiritual love. In itself, spirituality is not some kind of leprosy, it is not something so bad, necessarily bad, not at all. Man has a soul and a body. And this soul can then unite with the spirit of God, spiritual life can begin in this soul. The spiritual often begins with the soul. But it begins precisely in the soul, in the spiritual life. So, as confessors say, the spiritual must be combined with the spiritual, the transformation of the spiritual into the spiritual must take place. And the priest must be able to put a person on the right track. A person comes and cries, he just needs warmth. He needs to say:
- Well, why are you so upset, come, I will help you, I will tell you something ...
And one such spiritual word of a person transforms, changes his life, attracts him. It is necessary for a person, it is a legitimate need of a person. Therefore, one should not think that it is bad if a priest addresses someone with such spiritual warmth. And if a priest is harsh and cold, who loves only “spiritually” and never stoops to spirituality, then this is a kind of dummy, this does not happen in life. AND Reverend Seraphim, And Reverend Sergius, and Elder Ambrose, - they always knew how to show this warmth of soul, to say: “My joy,” and they could give candy or something else, affectionately look at a person. But this should only be the beginning. And further from spiritual life, from spiritual relationships, from spiritual love, there must necessarily be a transition to spiritual life. When a person comes, driven by a spiritual feeling or a spiritual need, then very soon you need to say to him:
“Well, now humble yourself, now you have seen, you have found the Church, you have found church life, a new path. Now let's humble ourselves, work, live a feat. Now I will not stroke your head, but demand that you correct yourself.
And here it happens that a person reaches some kind of Rubicon and does not want to go further. Especially women often do not want to go further. They need soulfulness and nothing else, and they begin to stagnate in this. The priest begins to worry about this, he begins to demand, to explain:
“It’s so pointless, useless, it’s a fruitless path.
And in response - some resentment. In response - tears, tantrums, reproaches, scandals, sometimes indecent.
There are many cases when the confessor does not know how to get out of this situation, even an experienced, good one.
If the spiritual forces are unlimited, because they are given by God, nourished by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the greater the need, the more these forces are given from God according to the principle “the hand of the giver will not fail”, then the spiritual forces of the priest are limited. He begins to faint, can no longer do this, finally breaks down and says:
- Go away. I can't and don't want to, how long can this go on!
It takes a lot of wisdom, patience, love, feat, so as not to be captured by spiritual relationships, so as not to seduce anyone, not deceive, not indulge in deception, but also not to alienate a person so that he leaves in despair and will not come to church again.
It is probably necessary to finish this topic by talking about the fact that there are a lot of mentally ill people in life now. There are many of them all over the world, especially in our country. And, in particular, there are many of them in the Church. Where should a mentally ill person go if not to the Church? This is his last refuge, where he can expect to find compassion for himself. This is where he can have his place too. In all other places he is denied, he is not needed there. And here he hopes that God needs everyone, and God needs him too. He comes here looking for this mercy, waiting for it. These people can find some use for themselves in the church, and work with great benefit. But at the same time they create a very heavy ballast and a painful atmosphere that falls on the shoulders of the priest. With their sick feelings, sick souls, they burden the priest no longer as a confessor, a priest in our time needs to be a psychiatrist too.
So many psychiatrists now come to church and ask the priests to help them. They say:
- We can give a medicine, bring a person out of an acute condition. And then we can't keep him in the hospital forever. Where should he go next? Let him go to church. And you must keep him in the church.
Indeed, it turns out that such people are rehabilitated in the church, they find a way of life. But they require a lot of attention to themselves, tact, great strength on the part of the priest.
However, among them there are people who do not want to recognize themselves as sick. Being sick, they want to feel healthy and are not aware of their illness. These are the most difficult cases. The priest must explain to the person that mental illness is not a disgrace. This is not some kind of a state deleted from life. This is a cross. Let's say a lame man comes to church, but no one pretends that he is healthy and no one says to him: "Run and jump like healthy people." Everyone feels his lameness and will not give him an obedience that he cannot do. Also mental illness, mental illness is a cross. Such a person cannot do something the way healthy people do. But he can humble himself, and he must humble himself. He does not understand much, but he must obey. And if you manage to explain to such a patient that he must humble himself, then everything is in order. He will definitely be rehabilitated and will be able to live safely in the church. Neither the Kingdom of God nor the life of grace is closed to him. If such a person does not want to humble himself, if in his mental breakdowns he imposes a mentally unhealthy atmosphere on the priest, then it's a disaster. These people need to be treated. They often say:
- And why do you bless to drink "pills". Can mental illness be treated with pills? I came to church, I ask for the grace of God, I want God to heal my sick soul. Why do you send to doctors? What, the grace of God does not work?
The grace of God acts, and God can heal any sick person from any disease in an instant. The lame can be made whole, the blind can be made sighted, and the mentally ill can be made healthy, that's for sure. But why doesn't the Lord want to? Here you are lame and lame all your life. Why? But because the Lord humbles you in this way, because such a cross has been placed on you by God. Or maybe you yourself chose this cross once. This can also be.
We must reconcile. You are not allowed to see with two eyes, but only with one. And you will be deaf ... And we are all so deaf, slanting, blind and sick, and each of us must carry his own cross. In the same way, a mentally ill person must also bear his cross. I have hypertension, I have to take pills. The Lord can heal me so that I have normal blood pressure. But the Lord prefers that I take pills rather than receive such miraculous healing. I am not worthy of this miracle, I need to humble myself and realize every day my weakness and my impotence, pull my shoulder and suffer my illness.
Similarly with any other illness, and with mental too. The Lord can heal you. But today, or maybe for the rest of your life, the Lord wants you to take pills. This does not mean at all that you do not need to take communion, and that this is for you instead of communion. So I take communion, I live by the grace of God, but this does not mean that I do not need to take pills for hypertension. All the same it is necessary. The Lord can heal me, but He does not heal me.
You need to be able to explain to a person that he must obey, humble himself, must recognize himself as sick, and agree to his sick fate. Spiritual life is only possible when a person agrees to recognize the true state of things and humbles himself, agrees to live with the cross that the Lord gave him. This is what faith is. If a person does not want to live as God tells him, does not accept the cross and does not follow Christ, does not recognize the saving path on which the Lord has placed him, then he is an unbeliever. If he is an unbeliever, how can you help him? Again the priest has to endure, humble himself, suffer, suffer. He thinks: “If the Lord burdens me with this, I will endure, maybe someday the Lord will do something Himself.”
In any case, the priest must be sure to see the truth, not to be deceived by any spiritual fakes. And I must tell this truth to my flock. If he doesn't want to hear the truth, he still needs to tell the truth. It is the priest's duty to bear witness to her. And then - what God will give.
I promised to talk about pastoral work, which is not limited to the community and does not necessarily apply to spiritual children. The priest is very often invited to the sick, dying, often the priest has to be in critical situations. It happens that young people, a man or a woman, come and say that they have a horror in their family, that a divorce is threatening, or that a child is hopelessly ill, or a mother comes and says that her son or daughter has gone astray, got into bad company, or is in prison. even, or that the wife died, or the husband died. In a word, a mass of tragic, dramatic situations always accompanies the life of a priest.
The priest, whom we have so far considered as the head of the community, a person called to lead the established spiritual family, must also be an ambulance at the same time. This feature is never removed. He must be ready at any time of the day or night to go to the dying person in order to confess and take communion, as they say, to admonish him before death.
It must be said that the canons themselves provide for a special attitude of the priest to such problems. If a priest came to call for parting words for the dying, then the priest must leave the service and go to the sick, because mercy and concern for the salvation of the human soul are above all. Even the liturgy in this case is also supposed to be left, if it has not yet reached the Cherubic Hymn. If the Cherubic Hymn is already being sung, then the priest has no right to leave the liturgy, he must serve it to the end and hand over the fate of the dying to God.
Now this almost never happens. Previously, when these canons were written, it meant that in every village, in every small town there is a temple, and the parishioners live around this temple. And you can walk around the village, take communion and come back. Now we often don’t have such parishes, it’s better to call them “arrivals”, that is, our parishioners mostly now come to the temple, often from afar, often not on a territorial, not on a geographical basis, they come specifically to the priest, no matter how far away he serves . Now it is almost impossible to confess the dying. In addition, they began to invite to the dying quite rarely. Usually the sick are given communion, but not the dying.
Nevertheless, the priest has to go to the sick and seriously ill quite regularly. It happens that a dying person for a short time, for the rest of his days, becomes the spiritual child of a priest. And he has it on the last stretch life path leads to God. If the dying person is still conscious, then there is a particularly favorable situation for the activity of the priest. A dying person is already estranged from everything earthly, from earthly worries, from passions, addictions, he really thinks about eternity, his hope is only in God. The priest usually quickly finds deep contact with him. The dying person can simply and easily explain the most important thing. He needs to be induced to confess, and he usually tries his best to remember his most serious sins and be sure to clear his conscience. False shame and all that is receding.
For a young priest, such cases are very useful, they teach him a lot. What is required of the priest here is love, and only love. Here spiritual experience is required less, because the task is simpler. It is impossible to condemn, reproach, educate such a dying person with coldness or severity. It just needs mercy.
A lot of people are dying of cancer these days. In ancient times, when the rite of communion of the dying was composed, there were not so many deaths from this disease. Cancer patients often have an obstruction and cannot swallow. We have designed a screw-on Chalice where you can take the Holy Blood from the Liturgy and partake of a small amount of the Holy Blood of the dying, without giving a Particle of the Body of Christ that they cannot swallow. This is how Father John of Kronstadt was communed before his death. He took communion every day, but he was dying of cancer and could not swallow before he died.
Such dying patients present a difficulty for the priest. It happens that such a patient vomits continuously, then it is impossible to take communion or only hope for a miracle. It happens that the patient is contagious, dies of tuberculosis or consumption, there is a real danger of becoming infected. It happens that the patient causes very strong feeling disgust, because the process of disintegration is already underway, it is difficult to communicate. It happens that a person is very disfigured by the disease. All this the priest must overcome with his love. And in each such person to see a child of God, his brother, he must have pity on him, and this pity and love must overcome any disgust and fear. The priest is in the service of God, he must think here not about himself, but about this penitent soul, which has come to the last limit. And here, of course, the priest, more than anyone else, should pray to help a person in his mortal feat not to lose courage, not to lose faith. Very often a priest has to tell a dying person that his illness is fatal, to say it when relatives do not say so. Sometimes it is necessary to baptize such dying people, because they have not yet been baptized.
There are difficulties of a different order. For example, they often call to a person who, in essence, is not fully in contact, and sometimes is not at all capable of contact. There are canons that forbid communion, in Slavic terms, "amazed", that is, those who are already in complete unconsciousness, completely unconscious. According to the canons, it is forbidden to give communion to such people, because every sacrament is performed by faith, and here a person can no longer realize, feel that he is being communed.
However, there may be different approaches to this issue. Suppose a person close to you dies, a parishioner or parishioner who constantly walked, took communion, prayed, you know, all their lives. He got really sick, maybe he had a stroke or something, and now he's dying. How can you not partake of him? Here the priest has the audacity to commune such a person either with a drop of Holy Blood, if the patient no longer swallows, or with a small particle of the Holy Gifts, because he is sure that this person has not fallen away from the Church, he has lived in the Church all the time, and there is no obstacle to communion him in this moment. I have been in such situations many times. There are amazing miracles, it happens that you commune a person, and he comes to his senses after that, even sometimes gets better and lives for some time, being mortally ill.
But if they call to a person who has never gone to church before, even declared himself an unbeliever, and now he has lost consciousness, is already dying, without revealing his relationship to God, then such a priest has no right to take communion. Here the canon has full force, because it is impossible to give communion to an unbelieving person, a person who does not want to receive communion. We don't know whether he wanted or didn't want, whether he believed or didn't believe, he didn't ask for it, he didn't declare it.
In such cases, there are various temptations. I'll give you an example. One Christian woman, a very temperamental lady, a Jewish convert, who lived in the church for many years, during most of her life tried to convert her sister to the faith. But in no case did she want to be baptized. And no matter how many years she tried to convince, persuade, explain, gave books, she angrily denied all these proposals of hers and did not want to be baptized. But then she became seriously ill, and a Christian sister looked after her in the hospital. And she persuaded her: “Look how bad you feel, you may die soon, well, be baptized.” But the sister still did not want to be baptized, she refused. Finally she lost consciousness. And the Christian sister decided that now nothing prevents her from being baptized. She starts calling, asking various confessors and even bishops what to do (and she had great connections). Some priests say no, you can't. How can you baptize when she did not want to. And others say, well, try it. And, not having received an unambiguous ban, this daring Christian nevertheless baptized her dying sister, who never came to herself before her death. This means that she has now died “baptized”, now you can bury her, because the most important thing for us is to “burial” a person. With all due respect to this late Christian woman, I told her, of course, that such a course of action was completely incompetent. We cannot commit such violence against a person's conscience, against his will. All such cases are, of course, invalid. I would not dare to recognize such a person as baptized. If we recognized him as baptized, then this means that we recognize some kind of Orthodox magic. This means that we do not understand what is Orthodox sacrament. Of course, this act was dictated by love, and she justified herself by the fact that the unbelieving sister was baptized according to the faith and love of the believing sister. But in this case, such a "substitution" cannot be carried out. If she had somehow encouraged, said at least: “Yes, I believe, baptize me,” and lost consciousness, then it would still be possible to do so. But she never agreed to numerous proposals.
In the same way, we cannot commune a person who has not expressed his faith. With me there was such a case. The daughter called her dying mother to take communion. I'm coming. I see that this elderly woman is already completely unconscious. I'm asking:
Has she ever taken communion?
- Not really.
- Well, she asked, did you talk to her, asked her to take communion?
Yes, no, she didn't.
Well, is she even a believer?
Well, yes, I guess, but I really don't know.
It was difficult for me to refuse her, but I said that I could not take communion with her. Let's pray to God for her to come to her senses. And when she comes to her senses, then call. And left. The next day, or a few days later, this daughter comes running and says:
- Father, she woke up.
I come to her, and she is still almost unconscious. But this daughter began to shake her, and she opened her eyes. I'm asking:
— Do you want to take communion, do you believe in God?
She says:
Yes, I believe I do.
I gave her communion, she immediately lost consciousness and died.
Of course, in this case it is no longer necessary to confess a person in detail throughout his entire life, as one would have to do. But here we must rely on the mercy of God. We cannot refuse the last parting word, communion to a person who desires this. The canons, however, sometimes provide for prohibitions and excommunication from the Church even on the deathbed. Usually the prohibitions are "except the deathbed". When a person dies, he can be given communion even if he was under a ban.
In such cases there can be no formalism. The principle of mercy and healing is at work here, of course. But if you know that a person has somehow sinned very seriously in this life, you need to encourage him to repent somehow.
There is another large category of invalids, unfortunate people, sick people, handicapped children, who sometimes cannot be considered spiritual children. Simply because they are seriously mentally ill, or completely crazy or some kind of simply inferior people. There are quite a few of these these days. Here, of course, the activity of the priest from the point of view of the earth, is hopeless. In ordinary communication one can educate people and much can be done. Nothing can be done with these people, they only consume the priest's strength and cannot give anything in return. Nevertheless, this activity is one of the most fruitful, surprisingly. There is always a miracle, the grace of God. A priest who rushes to help, nourishes the unfortunate, sick, destitute, abnormal, defective, will receive a hundredfold from God. We often think that for the Church these people are ballast, useless. In fact, this is not at all the case. These are, if you will, precious people for the Church. This is the beauty of the Church. All these weak, sick people are people who occupy a special wonderful place in the Church. Caring for them and serving them is just the most complete manifestation of the Christian spirit. This is the embodiment of Christ's love. And when a priest ministers to such people, he feels great joy and satisfaction, for the grace-filled presence of God is always felt here.
The pastoral activity of a priest, as you can see, is multifaceted. And very often it happens that the priest must, according to the word of Christ, leave his 99 prosperous, healthy sheep, and rush after one perishing or lost sheep. We have to give preference to the unfortunate, people who find themselves in difficult circumstances. And the community that already lives under a priest, it sometimes turns out to be neglected. This specificity of priestly service is contrary to earthly calculations, earthly approaches.
There are such words of Christ: "Let your left hand not know what your right hand is doing." In the life of a priest, this is confirmed with particular force. If a priest does good deeds, maybe gives alms, money, or simply his strength, his time, does not spare himself, then he acts as if absurd. It happens that he has a small amount of money, and he has a family, children. And suddenly a man in trouble comes to him, hungry and asks for money. Almost always, if a priest gives money with love, he will immediately receive much more. The Lord will surely send him someone who will give with interest and replenish ten and a hundred times. Of course, you can’t act here according to such a calculation: ladies, maybe I’ll get much more. But a priest must always remember that he is a servant of Christ, and if he lives righteously, purely, then Christ will be with him. And all Gospel commandments, all the Gospel promises will certainly be fulfilled in his life, in his ministry, if he sincerely serves God, in conscience, with love, with faith. And that's really how it always happens. In his activity, the priest must be both reasonable and prudent, and he must have the gift of reasoning, but he must live by faith. Not by earthly calculation, but by faith.
First of all, the most important thing is to fulfill the will of God, to fulfill the commandment of God, this is the first duty, this is the way of life.
We can already finish this section on pastoral work, on pastoral spiritual work, but it makes sense to return once again to the extremely acute and difficult problem that confronts every pastor. It is different for different priests, but the same problem always arises. What is the result of his efforts? Here the priest works, perhaps for many years. What is the result of these labors?
We can safely say that all good works will bring good fruits, and all the tares that the priest himself sows, obeying his passions, of course, will bear evil fruit. And then he will have to disentangle all these evil fruits. Although it is impossible, perhaps, to calculate all this formally, nevertheless the priest must look back and see what is happening to him, what is happening to his flock. The fact is that very often our efforts in achieving a goal lead to the opposite goal. This law, which we call heterogeneity of purpose, must always be remembered. It happens that there is some very serious mistake in the work of a priest, which he did not understand in time. Therefore, you need to turn around all the time, look at the fruits of your labors, so you sowed wheat, and what grows? Maybe only nettle grows, then you need to think about whether it is worth continuing to engage in such farming?
Looking back at his labors, in our time the priest sees, for the most part, a sad picture ... But there is, of course, joy. I know many zealous priests who show great fruit. They managed to gather a lot of people, gathered strong large communities, in these communities many people came or are coming to faith. Children are brought up in the church, new churches, parishes are arranged, schools are opened. Such communities significantly influence the life of society and the life of the Church.
But, besides the social, visible earthly result, structural, material, spiritual, there is also a spiritual result. What is happening in the Church today? We see that the churches, for the most part, are being filled, such communities are filling them, even opening new churches, restoring them. But who are they filled with? Believers, Orthodox people who often take communion, want to go to confession often... And yet there is something very sad in this. You can bring people to a certain level, and then they stop, and can no longer go. And this level is not so high. Usually this is the level of people who do not commit mortal sins, do not fornicate, do not drink, do not steal, do not conjure, do not beat their parents, do not swear, maybe they do not even smoke. They often take communion, but when you look at these people, you don't see that a person grows further and ascends from strength to strength, approaches Christ. Only the initial work has been done, something preliminary ...
It is sad that the real fruits are not visible. After all, truly every Christian, every person is called to holiness. In other words, all those who come to the Church, who begin to live the church life, must gradually become spiritual people, righteous, saints. And this is not. It can be seen that our church life and pastoral work are limited by some very low limit, which turns out to be insurmountable for many of us.
One can draw such a parallel. Here is some tourist group rising higher and higher into the mountains. First, these are wooded paths, very beautiful gorges, a road, and there, you see, alpine meadows, there is no forest anymore. You rise even higher and find yourself in a gorge where there is no vegetation, only low-growing shrubs, small grass and high snowy mountains, from which glaciers slide. Rivers originate from these glaciers. You reach the place where there is usually a shelter, and then you need to go to the pass through the snow, climb the glacier. And for this you need to have special equipment, boots, ice axes, ligaments, a completely different instructor, no longer a tourist, but a climber. And therefore, tourists stop at such a Rubicon and no longer go further. Further mortally dangerous, further another category of difficulty. Tourist walks at this level end. Let's say that such a tourist can reach a height of two and a half, three thousand meters. And you can’t climb a four thousandth height if you are not a climber. They don't let you in, you can't, but if you climb, you'll be killed.
Something similar can be seen in our church life. Our church life brings us to a certain height. Here we run, jump, work, build something, arrange something with confidence. But all this is up to a point. So what is next? We do not know how to continue to live. And it turns out that there are practically no instructors or guides who know how to live on, they are inaccessible. And if there are, then there are only one or two of them, and it is already impossible to get to them, these are such holy elders, of whom, perhaps, there are only three people left in all of Russia. Ordinary good priests, confessors, here they still know how, and then they no longer know how. They don’t know how to teach smart prayer, because they don’t pray themselves, they don’t have time, they work as foremen, and teachers, and it’s still unknown who, but they just don’t pray, they don’t have time. They do not know how to teach them to conquer their passions truly, to the end, they do not know how to teach them to live in the presence of God, to teach them to live according to the will of God, they do not know how to hear the will of God.
And there is a sad, heavy feeling of limitation. A person who has tried, is trying to live a spiritual life, probably knows this feeling, the feeling of being bankrupt. In fact, it turned out that you can’t do anything, you don’t know that you swaggered like that, swaggered ... In general, you really didn’t manage anything.
Is there any way out? Is there anything to hope for? The answer must be given objectively and honestly - we have little hope here. It must be admitted that we have lived to such a period church history when many things became impossible for us, transcendental, many feats moved away from us, became unthinkable, impossible for us. You probably remember what is said about the last times, that these times will be so difficult that if anyone only calls on the Name of the Lord at this time, he will be saved. You will not need anything at all, but only at this terrible moment to call on the Name of God, and then you will already be saved in view of the terrible difficult circumstances of the time.
Each time corresponds to its own level of difficulty and its spiritual achievements. The Lord will not impute to us that we do not reach such levels, such righteousness, holiness, as the ancient saints.
But the same thing is required of us as of them - a feat is required. Our feat will not be as fruitful as their feat. When the Monk Seraphim labored in the Sarov forests, he reached perfection, high holiness. And when priests and bishops sat in camps in the same forests, they did not reach such perfection there, such insight, miracles. But their feat was, perhaps, no less. This is another feat and other fruits of this feat. And the Lord will impute to them their feat in holiness.
You know, people say: “You do your job, and if you don’t know how to do something, then the Angel will do it for you, if you really put all your strength.” When a person works, lives a feat, then the limitation is removed, it goes away. The Lord, by His grace, completes everything that is necessary besides the person and besides the priest. Everything that a priest cannot give will be given by God if this priest really works, i.e. lives by deed.
It often happens that spiritual children begin to be disappointed in something, they also do not know how to live a feat, they do not want to. They are not looking for a spiritual life, a spiritual feat, they are looking for some kind of comfort, some kind of special relationship. They stop looking for humility, obedience, and begin to demand from their confessor that he understands them, that he devotes time to them, that he listens to them, that he talks with them endlessly, that he treats them somehow, they begin to be rude, to be insolent to your confessors. This is very, very common these days.
In essence, it must be admitted that there are very few spiritual children. There are almost none. Perhaps there is a huge crowd of people, but they are all not spiritual children. Spiritual children who are not even going to live a spiritual life. If the so-called spiritual child rude to his confessor, then this is not a spiritual child, I assure you. In the same way, if a spiritual child does not want to obey, you tell him one, two, three, but he does not obey, then this, of course, is not a spiritual child, only the name remains.
And here the priest needs to see clearly, and clearly admit that something high did not work out, does not work out for him, and boldly say to these so-called spiritual children of his:
- Don't lie to each other. If you don't want that, go somewhere else and that's it. Why play in obedience, in some kind of relationship. Why do it?
It will be much better, much more honest. Usually the priest comes to this in the end. He begins to avoid these fruitless relationships, relationships that leave only one heaviness on the soul. And that is why we very often see elderly priests, very good ones, who have almost no spiritual children. Once there were parishes, but in old age there was no one left. Maybe there are two or three people, maybe five. Why? Because this priest no longer has the strength to confess endlessly, and he can no longer talk, he no longer represents spiritual interest for these spiritual children. And there are very, very few people who really want to obey him, who believe him. Maybe there was a community of 500 people, but maybe five remained. The rest are all scattered.
There are very few people who truly want to seek the achievement of spiritual life. The vast majority are looking for spiritual life, spiritual comfort, spiritual relationships, earthly life, not heavenly, do not want to free themselves from their passions, do not want to give up their will, do not want to sacrifice anything significant.
There are very few people who want to give up their will, become obedient, seek the will of God. And so the priest must not be allowed to be misled. Activity is in full swing, everything comes to life, everything grows, temples are being built, everything seems to bear fruit, the priest is given awards, he is promoted in ranks, everything is exemplary, everything is fine. He can believe that everything is really beautiful... Every pastor must remember that it will be beautiful only when he approaches God, and when his flock also goes to God, to spiritual life, to a grace-filled life. Then only it will be beautiful when everything is better and better done Divine Liturgy when a blessed light will appear on the conscience, in the soul, when any earthly well-being, earthly achievements, rewards will matter less and less. He will count all this for nothing if he touches the grace-filled life, life with God. Now, if he lives like this, then spiritual children will gradually gather to him, who will have the same dispensation. If he is mainly immersed in earthly activity, then his children will be the same, earthly, and not spiritual.
Most of all, a priest should be afraid of substitution, because substitution carries the spirit of antichrist in itself, instead of the Spirit of Christ.
He must look - but he did not get lost, he himself did not forget the only correct goal? Is he going to Christ, and is he ready to sacrifice everything in order to stay with Christ? And he must boldly admit that he knows little, succeeds little, and among those who follow him there are very few real spiritual children. And, engaging in all kinds of activities, both charitable, and teaching, and organizational, and construction, and simply the administration of services and requirements, the priest must remember the one thing that is needed - that the most important thing that can never be sacrificed, you can not give up - real life with God, blessed life. Everything else without a grace-filled life has no value, no meaning, and will only give the opposite result.
"Repentance, Confession, Spiritual Guidance". - M., 2002
Repentance. In the quotes of the holy fathers and ascetics of the Church Repentance is a ladder that raises us to where we fell from. (St. Ephraim the Syrian) Repentance is the return of Baptism, the promise to God of a new life, reconciliation with the Lord, through good deeds, opposite to the fall. (St. Abba Dorotheos and John of the Ladder) The whole Christian life is nothing but repentance, which is constant until the end of life. (St. Tikhon of Zadonsk) Repentance is given by God to man so that, often falling into sins and distorting in himself the features of the immortal image of God, he constantly restores them in himself and returns the lost beauty of the image of God and hates the ridiculous, ugly, deadly sin and is inspired and strengthened himself for good deeds, passionately loving God and neighbor and the truth of God. (St. John of Kronstadt) Saints were the same people as all of us. Many of them came from great sins, but by repentance they reached the Kingdom of Heaven. And everyone who comes there comes through repentance, which the merciful Lord has given us through His sufferings. (St. Silouan of Athos) The unceasing prayer of repentance is the best means of uniting the human spirit with the Spirit of God. At the same time, it is a spiritual sword that destroys all sin. (St. Seraphim Vyritsky) Repentance is expressed by the Greek word "throwing". In a literal sense, this means a change in one's mind, one's wisdom, in other words, repentance is a change in one's mood, one's way of thinking, a change in a person within himself. Repentance is a revision of one's views, a change in one's life. (St. John Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco) First of all, we need to draw closer - through the Church and the sacrament of confession and Divine Communion - to our good Father. And then He - even without asking - will give people such a gift as they want. (Elder Paisios the Holy Mountaineer) The work of repentance is accomplished by three virtues: 1) purification of thoughts; 2) unceasing prayer; 3) the patience of the sorrows that befall us. (St. Macarius the Great) As grace for grace, people are given repentance after baptism, because repentance is the second rebirth from God. (St. Isaac the Syrian) Repentance is the door of mercy; Through this door we enter into God's mercy, and apart from this entrance you will not find mercy. (St. Isaac the Syrian) True repentance for the new beginnings is the knowledge of the fall and one's own sinfulness; in the middle ones, it separates true good from natural and from evil, both open and disguised good; in the perfect there is a spiritual mind that shines from the Holy Spirit and sees the mode of action of evil in other people. (St. Ignatius Brianchaninov) A meeting with the Lord is inevitable, and we must prepare for it. Our sins are straw that burns at this meeting. It is necessary to pronounce judgment on yourself in advance and, in preparation for that meeting, separate yourself from the straw, burn the straw of sins with repentance. (St. John, Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco) Repentance gives rise to the observance of the commandments, but their observance purifies the soul, that is, frees it from passions. (Abba Thalassius) Being in sins, we will not despair, but we will not be careless either. Let us carry true contrition in the heart, and not only on the tongue. For I know many who weep for their sins, but do no good. They fast, they wear coarse clothes, and yet they are just as greedy for money as usurers; they indulge in anger like ferocious beasts and love to speak of their neighbor more evil than other good things. This is not repentance, but only a ghost of it. (St. John Chrysostom) Pardon and remission of sins must be asked from the Lord in order to partake without condemnation of the most pure Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ in order to unite with the Lord and deliverance from the devil, who deceives people and rejects them from the Savior. (St. John of Damascus) The purpose of repentance is to lag behind sin and no longer fall into it. (Abba Isaiah) Real life is a place of struggle with evil. (St. John Chrysostom) God has omnipotence with truth, mercy with measure and weight - therefore God cannot have mercy on one who does not repent, nor give to one who does not ask, does not seek and does not have mercy on another. (St. Simeon the New Theologian) A sign of diligent repentance is that a person considers himself worthy of all the visible and invisible sorrows that happen to him, and even more. (St. Abba Dorotheos and John of the Ladder). Repentance for sin, by the way, consists in not doing it again. (St. Seraphim of Sarov) Blessed is he who has corrected himself by repentance and propitiated the Lord with his life. (St. Ephraim the Syrian) Repentance is a city of refuge, the gates of which are open for sinners. (St. Ephraim the Syrian) Repentance is a friend of mankind; it spreads its wings to lovingly embrace whoever comes to it. (St. Ephraim the Syrian) Repentance is an image of the justice and goodness of God; condemned are those who can but do not want to repent. (St. Ephraim the Syrian) Repentance is the door of mercy, opening to sinners until the end of the world. (St. Ephraim the Syrian) Repentance, relying on God's blessing, dissolves the penitent with the grace of the Holy Spirit and completely makes the son of God. (St. Ephraim the Syrian) The Lord does not reject a contrite heart that repents of its sins and mentally torments itself with the feat of repentance. (St. Ephraim the Syrian) Blessed is he who repents of his sins; for when he moves to that country, he will rest in the Kingdom, in the harbor of the saints, will be delivered from the terrible, terrifying torments that await Satan, whose condemnation is endless. (St. Ephraim the Syrian) Repentance is a rebirth from God and is born from faith and fear of punishment until we acquire love. (St. Isaac the Syrian) Repentance is a contrite and humble heart. (St. Isaac the Syrian) Judaic scribes and Pharisees, in their state of mind, became not only strangers to God, but His enemies, God-killers. Ascetics of prayer are subjected to a similar calamity, having spewed repentance from their feat, intensified to arouse in their hearts love for God, pleasure, delight; they make themselves strangers to God, enter into communion with Satan, and become infected with hatred for the Holy Spirit. (St. Ignatius Brianchaninov) What are your sins against the mercy of God, whatever they may be, if only you sincerely repent of them! (St. John of Kronstadt) Conscience, memory, imagination, feeling, will help repentance. Repentance only in words, without the intention of correction and without a sense of contrition, is called hypocritical. (St. John of Kronstadt) What does fasting and repentance lead to? Why work? It leads to the cleansing of sins, peace of mind, to union with God, to sonship, to boldness before the Lord. There is something to fast and confess from the heart. The reward will be invaluable for conscientious work. (St. John of Kronstadt) Whoever is used to giving an account of his life at confession here will not be afraid to give an answer to the Last Judgment Christ. (St. John of Kronstadt) To repent means to feel lies, madness, the guilt of one’s sins in the heart, means to recognize that they offended their Creator, Lord, Father and Benefactor, infinitely Holy and infinitely abhorring sin, means with all my soul to desire correction and smoothing them out. (St. John of Kronstadt) If the soul accuses itself before the Lord, the Lord will love it. (Abba Pimen) The end of virtues is love, the end of passions is self-justification. (Abba Pimen) Common sin does not become less guilty before God because it is common; it is common sins that most excite the wrath of God. (Gen. 6, 5 - 7). (Cyril Bishop of Melitopol) Those who repent and hope glorify the infinite mercy of God, those who hope and do not repent blaspheme God, presenting Him as the patron of evil. (St. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow) To be a sinner is a common misfortune; to remain and become stagnant in sins - that's guilt and trouble! (St. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow) There is no unforgivable sin, except for the unrepentant sin. (St. Isaac the Syrian) God is not so much irritated by the sins we have committed as our unwillingness to change. (St. John Chrysostom) We all need pardon and correction, because tomorrow is unfaithful for us: many, having planned a lot, did not live to see tomorrow. (St. Basil the Great) He who promised forgiveness of sins to the penitent did not promise the sinner tomorrow. (St. Gregory the Dialogist) Don't put off until tomorrow: this tomorrow never ends. (St. John Chrysostom) Sin places such a stain on us that cannot be washed away by a thousand springs, but only by tears and repentance. (St. John Chrysostom) Every sin is committed for pleasure, and every forgiveness of sins is obtained through malice and sorrow. (Abba Thalassius) Weep, brethren; let our eyes shed tears before we go to where our tears will burn our bodies. (St. Macarius the Great) Not only do we not mourn for what we have done, but we also multiply what should be mourned. (St. Gregory the Dialogist) It is not enough to confess before God, one must also confess before those who have received from God the authority to confess. (Blessed Augustine) The surest sign by which any penitent sinner can know whether his sins are really forgiven by God is when we feel such hatred and disgust from all sins that we would rather agree to die than sin arbitrarily before the Lord. (St. Basil the Great) Repentance is war against sin. (Archim. Macarius) Those places that give you a chance to fall, avoid as a scourge: for when we do not see the forbidden fruit, we do not desire it so much. (St. John of the Ladder) Do not strengthen the sins you have committed before in your soul by thinking about them, so that they do not renew in you. Be sure that they are forgiven you from the time you gave yourself to God and repentance. Do not doubt that. (St. Anthony the Great) If you sin a thousand times, but then again resort to repentance, then you will again be cleansed of the filth and the iniquities you have committed. (St. Ephraim the Syrian)
Repentance is the understanding and recognition of sins before God, as well as actions aimed at changing one's life. In the church sacrament of repentance, the sinner receives permission for sins and help in the fight against sin.
Parable of the Prodigal Son
Meaning of the word
The liturgical books adopted in the Russian Church are translated from the Greek by Sts. Cyril and Methodius. When translating St. Cyril and Methodius were faced with the lack of words and concepts among the Slavs denoting Christian values. There was no exact equivalent for the word "metanoia" (μετάνοια). It was translated as "repentance", or recognition of committed misconduct. The Greek meaning of "metanoia" is much deeper: change, insight. Thus, it is not just about recognizing one's sinfulness, but about changing one's life.
Repentance before preaching the gospel
"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." These were the first words of the sermon of John the Baptist, the Forerunner of Christ. Even then, repentance presupposed the beginning of a new life. Those who came to the Jordan to St. John, acknowledging sins and repenting, was simultaneously asked how to change his life: “What should we do?” Such questions were asked by warriors, publicans (tax collectors). Answers of St. John also touched on lifestyle: “Ask nothing more than what is certain for you ... do not slander, be content with your salary” (Luke 3:10).
Metanoia of the Ancient Church
The change in lifestyle and values was repentance in early Christianity. One of the most striking examples is the publican Zacchaeus. His metanoia begins with humility. A well-known rich man performs actions that are completely indecent for him: he climbs a fig tree to see the Teacher - Christ. And when the Lord comes to the house of Zacchaeus, the transformation of man is completed: he distributes half of the property to the poor, multiplies the damage to all those whom he offended. Therefore, the Lord says: “Today is salvation for this house” (Luke 19:9)
Useful materials
During the Apostolic ministry, repentance also presupposed the unity of word and deed. “What shall we do, brothers and sisters?” the believers asked after the descent of the Holy Spirit. They received the answer: "Repent, that every one of you be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ" (Acts 2:37).
The young Christian community itself showed repentance by deed. The new converts sold their property, “placed its price at the feet of the Apostles” (Acts 5:1), started a completely new life, not connected with the former one.
The same was the image of repentance during the time of persecution of Christianity. From the life of St. Sebastian knows the episode with the baptism of the eparch Chromatius. The priest asked him:
“Do you renounce your former sins?”
Chromatius remarked to this:
“I should have been asked about this at the beginning: I will put on my clothes again and will not receive holy baptism until I renounce my sins; I will be reconciled with those with whom I had enmity and I will love those with whom I was angry; Whoever is angry with me, I ask forgiveness from them. I will forgive my debtors all their debts, but if I myself took something from someone by force, I will return it purely ... I will arrange all my official and domestic affairs by the will of God and then I will say with boldness: “I renounce all my sins and receive holy baptism.”
The formation of the rank of repentance
The repentance of Chromatius is the conversion of a pagan. But with the onset of persecution, Christians appeared who renounced their faith out of fear. Already from the III century. the question arose of what to do with such believers if they wish to turn to. For this, a special rank appeared.
According to sources, already from the III century. repentance was public. It included three stages:
- accepting the sinner as a penitent;
- penance;
- return to church fellowship.
At all stages, the priest played the most important role, according to the word of the Gospel:
“... What you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Mt 18:18).
At the first stage, the sinner came to the priest, who found out the sincerity of his intentions. The presbyter laid hands on him with . But this was only the beginning of reconciliation with the Church. On the first day of Great Lent, the penitent, brought into the church by the bishop, was thrown to the ground "in dust and ashes." The community prayed for him. The bishop spoke out.
Then the second, longest stage began - penance. Carriers of this feat were divided into 4 groups:
- crying (during the service they stood outside the church, asking for prayers for themselves);
- listeners (stood in the porch);
- adhering (they were at the service before the liturgy of the faithful, they were obliged to leave with the catechumens at the end of it);
- standing (they were present at the liturgy until the end, but were not allowed before Communion).
For many days, and sometimes months, even years, the sinner moved from one category to another, until he turned out to be “worthy”.
The third stage of repentance came after penance. Usually penitents were introduced into church communion on Holy Week, shortly before Easter. Prayers were said over the penitent, he again asked for forgiveness from the faithful, confessed his renunciation in front of everyone, giving a promise to improve his life. By the laying on of the bishop's hands, a person's sins were forgiven. Now he could proceed to the Holy Mysteries.
Secret confession
From the middle of the 4th century, when persecution ceased, apostates become much smaller, and other sins associated with various kinds of passions come to the fore. Confession remains public. But voices are heard about the seductiveness of such a confession for other faithful.
There is an opinion that the main reason for the emergence of secret confession was the gradual cooling of the ardent religious feeling. Not for everyone confession becomes "metanoia", when the sin committed is absolutely rejected and can be easily called out loud as non-existent.
Increasingly, the believer is ashamed to name his sins in front of everyone.
Interesting fact
It is believed that in the East confession remained public until the 5th century, in the West until the 7th century. Already from the IV century. only grave sins were subject to public confession (murder, sacrilege, fornication, incest, insult to authority).
Gradually, the need for painstaking work with the believer, his spiritual problems, begins to be realized. Priests-confessors appear, having a special blessing from the bishop for this work. Since the 9th century, after the iconoclastic heresy, the practice of confession only by hieromonks was established in Byzantium. It was believed that those who showed a special firmness of faith were more reliable spiritual leaders than secular priests.
Sacrament of Confession in Rus'
Rus', which received Baptism from Byzantium, made an attempt to adopt this tradition as well. However, the number of monastics was too small, there were even few white clergy. Therefore, confession in Rus' was made by both monks and secular priests. But at the same time in the X-XVII centuries. the tradition was absolute obedience to the confessor, even to the worldly one, similar to how a monk obeys his elder.
Interesting fact
Until the middle of the XVII century. confession in Russia had many features that brought it closer to the repentance of the first centuries of Christianity.
For example, according to the Trebnik of 1647, the penitent, like the custom of the 3rd century, was brought into the temple by a priest. Further, the priest “will place him before the royal doors… in the church, the priest will put on sacred clothes and take holy gospel and the Honest Cross and put it on the lectern in front of the Holy Doors directly of the royal doors ... Although he enters repentance with fear and humility and a contrite heart, his hand is bent to the pen ... and he will put his hand and head on the lectern, crying with tears of his sin.
The confession itself included questions about all aspects of life. There were lists of questions for lay men, women, for boyars, the king, monastics, priests, etc. Treasuries until the 17th century. do not allocate specifically permissive prayers. After all, the sacrament as a whole became a "metanoia" for the penitent.
Confession and Communion
In the ancient Church, the two sacraments were not rigidly linked. So, the life of St. (IV century) tells that she proceeded to Communion after her personal repentance before the icon of the Virgin. There is no evidence that any confessor performed the sacrament of repentance over Mary.
Interesting fact
It was possible to proceed to the Holy Mysteries without confession in Rus' until the beginning of the 18th century. The ban on Communion without confession was introduced only in the Synodal period of the history of the Church.
Currently, the issue of the connection between Confession and Communion is being discussed in the church environment, however, the tradition of not receiving Communion without confession is preserved everywhere.
How is confession done in the church now?
The modern rite of confession has developed since the middle of the 17th century. after the liturgical reform of Patriarch Nikon. It is much shorter than those ranks to which our ancestors of the X-XVII centuries are accustomed.
According to the Trebnik, it is necessary to perform the sacrament before the Lord. The breviary indicates that the believer, when performing the sacrament, is one, "and not two or many." But this rule is almost always violated, since, as a rule, there are more than one who wish to proceed to the sacrament.
Now the rank includes:
- the initial exclamation of the priest “Blessed be our God…”;
- the so-called "ordinary beginning", according to liturgists, is one of the most ancient elements of any worship going back to the Apostles. This is the Trisagion, prayers Holy Trinity", "Our Father";
- Psalm 50 (“Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy”);
- two priestly prayers;
- short address by the priest;
- Symbol of faith. It must be pronounced by the penitent, but in practice this is often done by the priest;
- questions to the confessor;
- permissive prayer. Saying it, the priest puts on the penitent stole.
at the end of the sacrament, “It is worthy to eat” is sung and the leave is pronounced. But since in most cases confession takes place during the divine service, most often this is not done.
How to repent of your sins
Repentance involves a change in mindset and lifestyle. According to the Orthodox understanding, verbal confession is only one of the stages of repentance. Metanoia itself is a process in which:
How do the concepts of "soul", "conscience" and "repentance" correlate?
“A living soul,” the breath of life, is God's gift to man, created “from the dust of the ground” (Gen. 1:7). The voice of the soul is the conscience of man. As the apostle John the Theologian wrote, “if our heart condemns us, how much more God? because God is greater than our hearts and knows everything” (John 3:20).
Just like the body needs food and clothing, the soul also needs to be satisfied. The main one is the need to communicate with your Creator, God. If a person moves away from this fellowship, he feels the convictions of conscience - the image of God in the soul. Then the person needs repentance. The Holy Fathers advise, when preparing for it, to be guided precisely by the denunciations of conscience, but they warn that a person's conscience can die, suppressed by a multitude of worldly cares.
Daily confession of sins in home prayer
In the prayer books, among evening prayers there is "Everyday Confession of Sins". In addition, experienced confessors advise checking your conscience with 3 prayers. evening rule, 4 prayers before Communion.
Can repentance mend the past
Repentance, of course, does not change the events of a person's past life - "you can't turn back what has been done." But it changes the attitude towards these events and, with the help of God, gives strength to overcome the consequences of sins committed.
Gospel of Repentance
“Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to him a woman taken in adultery, and setting her in the middle, they said to him: Teacher! this woman is taken in adultery; but Moses in the law commanded us to stone such people. What do you say? They said this, tempting Him, in order to find something to accuse Him. But Jesus, bending low, wrote with his finger on the ground, paying no attention to them. When they continued to ask Him, He raised himself up and said to them: He who is without sin among you, first cast a stone at her. And again, bending low, he wrote on the ground. But they, having heard this, and being convicted by their conscience, began to leave one by one, beginning from the elders to the last; and Jesus alone was left, and the woman standing in the midst. Jesus, rising up and not seeing anyone but a woman, said to her: woman! where are your accusers? nobody judged you? She answered: no one, Lord! Jesus said to her: Nor do I condemn you; go and sin no more” (Gospel of John 8:2-12)
“As Jesus was passing by, he saw a man sitting at the toll booth named Matthew, and he said to him, Follow me. And he got up and followed Him. And while Jesus was reclining in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and reclined with Him and His disciples. Seeing this, the Pharisees said to His disciples: Why does your Teacher eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? Jesus, hearing this, said to them: It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick, go and learn what it means: I want mercy, and not sacrifice? For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Gospel of Matthew 9:9-13).
“... But He told them the following parable: which of you, having a hundred sheep and having lost one of them, will not leave ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until he finds it? And having found it, he will take it on his shoulders with joy and, having come home, will call his friends and neighbors and say to them: rejoice with me: I found my lost sheep. I tell you that there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous who have no need of repentance” (Gospel of Luke 15:3-7).
Holy Fathers on repentance
“With regard to the active life, we cannot do anything worthy without repentance; but the Lord has much mercy on us for our purpose. He who forces himself and holds on to repentance until his very death, if he sins in anything, will be saved for forcing himself; for this the Lord promised in the Gospel.” (St. Mark the Ascetic)
“... A dead body does not rise with human power, but dead soul rises through repentance." (St. John Chrysostom)
“... If, enjoying sin, you stagnate in it, then repentance will turn away from you, because you knew how good it was, and preferred sin to it.” (St. Ephraim Sirin)
“Repentance is the renewal of baptism. Repentance is a covenant with God about the correction of life... Repentance is the constant rejection of bodily consolation. Repentance is the thought of self-condemnation and self-care, free from external cares... The repentant is the unashamed condemned... Repentance is the cleansing of conscience" (St. John of the Ladder)
“When a person stops praying, moves away from God and becomes like an ox: he works, eats, sleeps. And the more he moves away from God, the worse it gets. His heart cools down, and then he can no longer pray at all. To come to your senses, the heart must soften, turn to repentance, be touched” (St. Paisios the Holy Mountaineer)
Fight against sin
St. Theophan the Recluse wrote that it is necessary, first of all, to hate sin. But this is not enough. God's help is needed to overcome sin and its consequences. This requires the sacrament of repentance.
At the same time, it should be understood that the struggle with sinful passions takes a lifetime. There is a story about Abba Sisoy, to whom his spiritual son complained: “What should I do, abba? I fell! Rev. Sisoy answered his brother: “If you have fallen, then rise!” "But father, I have risen and fallen again!" “And get up again!” Asking how long the fall and repentance would continue, the brother received the answer: “Until you are taken from here, good or bad.”
Signs of true repentance and its fruits
The main signs of accomplished repentance, according to St. fathers - hatred of sin, a firm determination not to commit it, a sense of relief, freedom.
The fruit of repentance is the non-repetition of the former sin, that is, a complete change in life. It is necessary not to stop there, but to continue working on yourself.
Lessons of Repentance from Sacred Tradition
Tradition tells of many cases of sincere repentance and a complete change in life already in the first century of the existence of Christianity.
Repentance of the Apostles
One of the most striking examples of repentance is St. Peter. The Great Apostle, revered as one of the "pillars of the Church", experienced his renunciation of the Teacher for many years. The repentant attitude penetrated so deeply into Peter's life that he could not hear the cock crow without tears of repentance.
“The monster” and “the least of the Apostles” called himself the great Paul - “Apostle of tongues”. He always remembered that he was a persecutor of Christians, converted by the Lord Himself.
Repentance of the saints
One of the most striking is the penitential feat of the harlot Mary. Repentance and trust in the Lord made her a great ascetic, known as Mary of Egypt.
Holy Reverend Mary Egyptian
But the path to change is not easy. Many temptations meet the penitent on it, and therefore it is so important to attribute your change not to your own efforts, but to the Lord. The life of Jacob the Hermit (Comm. 4 March) provides an example of both falling and rising by the power of God.
St. James, having lived in the desert for many years, acquired the gift of clairvoyance and healing, even cast out demons. Having once cast out the unclean from the young girl, the elder dreamed of his own holiness. Immediately the grace of the Lord left him. The monk, a virgin from his mother's womb, first fell with the girl, then, frightened by publicity, killed her. Having fallen into despair, the monk who ruined his feat would return to the world. But the convictions of the brethren had an effect on the sinner. It was not even the will of God for him to die. Having shut himself up, the monk prayed for forgiveness for many years. And after 10 years, the monk received a notice of pardon. He again became a miracle worker, but he never attributed miracles to his exploits.
The Significance of Repentance in the Sacrament of Baptism
According to the Catechism, “Baptism is a Sacrament in which the believer, when the body is immersed three times in water, with the invocation of God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, dies to a carnal, sinful life, and is reborn from the Holy Spirit into a spiritual, holy life” . It is believed that in Baptism former sins are forgiven. But the resolution of sins by the Lord must be accompanied by the determination of the person being baptized to change his life.
How to Prepare for Confession
There is no need for fasting in preparation for the sacrament. There is no special prayer rule for those preparing for Confession. It is necessary to realize your sins, the determination to correct your life.
Modern man, not accustomed, according to Sts. fathers, “pay attention to yourself”, it can be difficult to see your problems. In this case, it is good to read literature that helps in this doing, for example
I confess to the Lord God Almighty, in the Holy Trinity, glorified and worshiped by the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit in all my sins, the evil I have committed in thought, word, deed, and all my feelings.
I have sinned against the Lord and Savior with my self-love, carnal pleasure, lust, gluttony, gluttony, laziness, self-pity, pride, conceit, humiliation of others, envy, hostility, hatred, malice, lust, fornication, impurity, self-will, disobedience, disobedience, rudeness, insolence , harshness, obstinacy of temper, unbelief, lack of faith, ingratitude, greed, cruelty, stinginess, greed, greed, sneak, deceit, slyness, slander, perjury, swearing, perjury, hypocrisy, captiousness, oppression, abduction, appropriation of someone else's, abuse, indulgence sins, indulgence, vain pastime, idle talk, idle talk, foul language, vanity, luxury, malevolence, malevolence, malevolence, vindictiveness, coldness, negligence, negligence in prayer and good deeds.
Disrespect for old age, disrespect for parents, infidelity, inconstancy in virtue, frivolity, vanity, timidity, grumbling, despondency, cowardice, despair, anger, passion for reading empty books, negligence in reading the Holy Gospel and other spiritual books, inventing an excuse for one’s own sins and self-justification instead of condemnation and self-accusation, dishonest performance of official duties, ill-will, negligence, incitement to evil, cursing one's neighbor, swearing, superstition, fortune-telling.
In all these iniquities I have sinned, and by them I have immeasurably offended my All-holy Lord and Benefactor, of which I admit that I am guilty, I repent and regret.
I lament bitterly about sins and henceforth, with God's help I will shun them.
GENERAL, CONFESSION ON PERSON OF THE PENITENT
Innumerable, Merciful God, my sins, voluntary and involuntary, obvious and secret, great and small, committed by word, deed, mind and thought, day and night, and in all hours and minutes of my life until this day and hour.
I have sinned before the Lord God with ingratitude for His great and countless good deeds and His good providence.
I have sinned, Lord, before You by not keeping the vows of Baptism. He sinned with lies and self-will.
He sinned by violating the Lord's Commandments and the traditions of the Holy Fathers.
He sinned with rudeness, insolence, disobedience, self-importance, severity, timidity, arrogance, humiliation of others, carnal pleasure, obstinacy of temper, disorderly screaming, irritability, beating, quarrels, cursing.
He sinned with slander, negligence, haste, malice, enmity, hatred, incitement, jealousy not according to reason.
He sinned with vengeance, rancor, voluptuousness, hostility, impurity, daydreaming, self-will, self-will, intemperance, drunkenness, whim, gluttony.
He sinned with distraction, jokes, witticisms, laughter, ridicule, insane fun, covetousness, sleeping much, doing nothing, abandoning prayer, service, fasting and good deeds.
He sinned with bewilderment, cooling, stinginess, greed, contempt for the poor and the poor.
He sinned with greed, sneakiness, negligence, idleness, self-pity, deceit, craftiness, carelessness, disrespect for old age, disobedience to those in authority, spiritual father and older brothers.
He sinned with unbelief, blasphemy, doubt, inconstancy, frivolity, indifference, insensibility, unbelief, indifference to the Holy Orthodox faith and the Holy Mysteries, infidelity, inattention to prayer and worship, to fasting and good deeds.
He sinned with immeasurable sorrow, sadness, despondency, conceit, despair, all sorts of nasty, crafty and bad thoughts.
I have sinned by calling on the name of God falsely and in vain.
He sinned with lack of faith, cowardice, hopelessness, scolding, hypocrisy, bribery, partiality, captiousness, oppression, punishment, covetousness, appropriation of someone else's.
I have sinned by abusing the gifts of God, indulgence in sins, idle talk, extravagance, coldness towards God and neighbor, incitement to evil, secret eating, secret drinking.
He sinned with a vain pastime, spreading his false and blasphemous opinions, pronouncing deliberately and thoughtlessly various kinds of curses on people, cattle, animals and birds.
I have sinned by allowing every thought that is unrighteous, impure, filthy and ungodly.
I have sinned by dreaming, ambition, charm, pretense, malice, creeping my tongue into ungodly words, spending time in unsimilar deeds, mockery, temptation, dancing, gambling, laughter.
He sinned by omitting prayer before going to bed and upon rising from sleep. He sinned by forgetting to make the sign of the cross before eating food. He sinned by eating food after sunset, by foul language and idle talk without a twinge of conscience.
I have sinned with jealousy, wrong advice, flattery, lasciviousness, voluptuousness, and pickiness in food.
I sinned by reading romance novels, watching seductive films.
I have sinned by negligence in reading the Gospel, the Psalter and other books of spiritual and religious content.
I have sinned by inventing excuses for my sins and self-justification instead of self-judgment and self-condemnation.
I have sinned by dishonest fulfillment of the assignments and obediences entrusted to me, by bearing false witness against my neighbor.
I have sinned with pride, vanity, arrogance, arrogance, an increased interest in clothing and fashion, a desire for honor, petrification of the heart, crafty thoughts and human pleasing.
I have sinned with various impurity, by the action of the enemy, in a sleepy dream. He sinned with lustful and fornicating deeds by nature and through nature.
Often I sinned by omitting services in God's temple, being late for church services. He sinned by visiting churches of other faiths. I sinned by leaving God's temple before the leave of the church. He sinned by omission and non-fulfillment of the prayer rule, an impure confession and an unworthy acceptance of the Body and Blood of the Lord.
I sinned by giving alms with a cold, crafty heart, bitterness towards the poor. He sinned by not fulfilling the Lord's commandments about visiting the sick, who are in prison.
He sinned by not doing the deeds commanded by the Lord: he did not satisfy the hungry, he did not give drink to the thirsty, he did not clothe the naked, he did not bury the dead.
He sinned by not paying due honor to holidays and Sundays.
He sinned by not praying as he should on the Lord's and Mother of God feasts.
He sinned by forgetting the memory of the holy saints of God and drunkenly celebrating holidays in general.
I have sinned by slandering and condemning the highest in position, by age, by slandering friends, benefactors, by not maintaining fidelity and love.
I have sinned by going to the church of God without a humble disposition of heart; sinned by impious standing in the temple: walking, sitting, reclining and untimely presence from it, idle conversations during worship.
I remembered in vain the name of the Lord my God, even, it happened, I swore by His holy, terrible name; often lied and boldly and shamelessly reproached my neighbor. I often hesitated to get out of a state of anger and insulted, irritated my neighbor. He was magnified by good deeds, which he did not have at all. He often resorted to cunning, flattery and was two-faced and crafty in relations with people.
Every day I sinned with impatience, cowardice, many times ridiculed the sin of my neighbor, saddening him secretly and openly, gloated over his deeds and misfortune, many times carried enmity, malice, hatred and envy in my heart.
He sinned with insane laughter, witticisms, obscene jokes, disorderly noisy conversation; often spoke thoughtlessly.
He created fornication in a dream vision, was stung by the beauty of the human body, nourished the imagination and heart with voluptuous feelings. He sinned with a passionate look at beautiful faces.
He sinned with my tongue, uttering atrocities, blasphemy, vulgarity about objects of voluptuousness, fornicated, inflamed with passionate kisses and did inappropriate things.
He sinned with voluptuousness and gluttony, enjoyed delicacies, desired variety in food, enjoyed drinks and wines. Hastily yielded to his desires and fulfilled his whims.
He often did not spare money in order to please the requirements and decency of the world, and spared a penny for the poor.
Often mercilessly condemned and reproved others, despised poverty and abhorred it. Sinned with a hostile attitude towards a person because of his face, appearance. He was greedy and greedy. He often went to God's temple in uncleanness and in this form venerated holy things, took holy prosphora and drank holy water, stood reverently in the temple, tempting others with this.
In home prayer, he was cold, distracted, often prayed briefly and hastily, without zeal and reverence, did not overcome his laziness, indulged in bliss and inactivity, spent time in idle pursuits and pleasures, cheerful conversations, games. He spent precious time on chatter, gossip, gossip, censure of his neighbor. He sinned with despondency, despair in his salvation and the mercy of God.
He uttered blasphemous words, sang shameless, reckless songs, resorted to divination and divination, not realizing the severity of this sin. He sinned with ignorance, petrification of the heart. Often he sinned willingly, in full understanding and consciousness, of his own free will, and deliberately inclined others to sin, violating all the covenants and commandments of God.
I have sinned with all my feelings, willingly and unwillingly, knowledge and ignorance, by myself and through others I have been tempted in all these and other iniquities.
I consider myself guilty before the face of God more than all people, therefore I humbly pray to you, honest father, on the Day of Judgment be my witness. I truly regret these falls and have the will to continue, as far as possible, hoping for God's mercy and help, to guard myself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit.
Forgive me, honest father, forgive me from all my sins and iniquities and pray for me, a sinful and unworthy slave (you can ask for penance).
GENERAL CONFESSION,
COMPILED ON THE WORKS OF EP. JUSTINA
I confess to the Lord God Almighty, Holy Trinity to the glorified and worshiped Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit... in all my sins.
I confess that I have sinned against all the commandments of God.
I have sinned: lack of faith and unbelief, doubt in faith; superstition and arrogance, negligence in one's own salvation, forgetfulness of God's justice and lack of devotion to the will of God; a stubborn desire to have everything my way; impatience and murmuring.
I have sinned: self-interest, pride, servility to the spirit of the times and worldly customs; sinned against conscience, hypocrisy.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me!
I have sinned: with blasphemy and blasphemy, with a false oath and breaking an oath, with swearing, contempt and ridicule of pious people, with shame to appear pious and generally a Christian in the circle of worldly people.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me!
I have sinned: by disrespecting church holidays, by standing in church without reverence, by being lazy in prayer, in reading the Word of God and other soulful books; careless self-image sign of the cross; non-observance of fasts according to the charter of the Church; laziness to work and unfair performance of work and deeds according to the position of service; idleness and wasting a lot of time in indecent amusements, feasts. I have sinned, Lord, by concealing my sins at confession.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me!
I have sinned: disrespect for parents and coldness towards relatives, disrespect for those in authority and disrespect for elders, ingratitude towards benefactors; obstinate treatment of subordinates and cruel acts with them.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me!
I have sinned: by killing (moral or physical) myself or another; oppression of the neighbor and deprivation of his means of life, insulting the neighbor with anger, obstinacy in treatment, slander, hatred, causing harm to the neighbor, enmity, rancor, temptation to sin, stubborn resistance to the truth, bitterness.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me!
I have sinned with carnal sins: fornication, adultery, voluptuousness in all its forms: passionate kisses, impure touch, looking at beautiful faces with lust, foul language, shameless body movements, pandering, arbitrary lustful kindling, excess in carnal pleasures, intemperance in fasting, on Sundays. and holidays, satiety in food and drink, reading soul-corrupting books and looking at seductive pictures.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me!
I have sinned: by theft, embezzlement of other people's property, deceit, false testimony, selling bad goods instead of good goods, measuring, calculating, concealing the found thing, hiding the thief and theft, arson, parasitism, covetousness, sacrilege, lack of mercy to the poor, failure to give mercy or help to those in need , stinginess, luxury, drunkenness, greed, infidelity, injustice, hardness of heart.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me!
I have sinned: false denunciation, false testimony, slander, denigration of the good name and honor of my neighbor, disclosure of the sins and weaknesses of my neighbor, suspicion, doubt in the honor of my neighbor, reinterpretation of his words and actions for the worse, condemnation, gossip, duplicity, gossip, ridicule, obscene jokes, lies, slyness, deceit, hypocrisy, hypocritical treatment of others, laziness, talkativeness, idle talk.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me!
I have sinned: with bad desires and thoughts, envy, lust for power and pride, self-interest and carnal pleasure. I have sinned, Lord, by sight, by hearing; With impure desires and criminal deeds, I remove myself from Your presence. But I recognize myself as guilty before You, Lord, and I confess all my sins, which I have committed by will and not by will, by knowledge and ignorance, by words, deeds and thoughts. I am guilty, unanswerable before the Lord my God; I repent of all the sins of my soul and body, with which I angered my God and the Creator, unjustified my neighbor and denigrated myself. I sincerely repent of everything and will make efforts to ensure that I do not sin like that again. But as weak and powerless in itself for pleasing and holy deeds, with tears I pray to You, Lord God, my Savior: help me to be affirmed in my intention to live the rest of my life godly and holy, and forgive my past sins with Your mercy and resolve from all my sins, like a good and philanthropist!
CONFESSION WRITTEN IN THE OPTINA PUSTINA
I confess to the Lord God Almighty, in the Holy Trinity, glorified and worshiped by the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, about all my sins:
I confess that I was conceived in sins, born in sins, brought up in sins and from the very baptism until now living in sins.
I confess that I have sinned against all the commandments of God with little faith and unbelief, doubt and free opinion, superstition, divination, arrogance, negligence, despair in my salvation, hope in myself and people more than in God.
Forgetting about the justice of God and lack of sufficient devotion to the will of God.
Disobedience to the orders of God's Providence.
A stubborn desire for everything to be "my way."
Human pleasing and partial love for the creature.
Not trying to reveal in yourself the full knowledge of God and His will, faith in Him, reverence for Him, fear of Him, hope in Him, love for Him and zeal for His glory.
He sinned: by enslaving himself to passions: voluptuousness, greed, pride, self-love, vanity, servility to the spirit of the times, worldly customs against conscience, in violation of the commandments of God, covetousness, gluttony, delicacy, overeating, drunkenness.
I have sinned: by blasphemy, by a false oath, by breaking an oath, by not fulfilling vows, by forcing others to worship, by swearing, by disrespect for sacred things and piety, by blasphemy against God, against saints, against every holy thing, blasphemy, blasphemy, invoking the name of God in vain, in bad deeds, desires, jokes and fun.
I have sinned: by disrespecting the holidays and doing things that degrade the honor of the holidays, by standing in church without reverence, by talking and laughing, by being lazy in prayer and reading the Holy Scriptures, by abandoning morning and evening prayers, by concealing sins at confession, by not diligently about proper preparation for communion of the Holy Mysteries, disrespect for sacred objects and careless depiction of the sign of the cross. Non-observance of posts according to the charter of the Church, laziness to work and unscrupulous performance of assigned work and deeds on duty, wasting a lot of time in vain in idleness, absent-mindedness.
I have sinned: not by honoring parents and superiors, by disrespect for elders, spiritual shepherds and teachers.
He sinned: in vain anger, insulting neighbors, hatred, harming neighbors, enmity, rancor, temptation, advice to sin, arson, not saving a person from death, poisoning, killing (children in the womb) - advice to this.
Sinned: sins of the flesh - fornication, adultery, voluptuousness, passionate kisses, impure touch, looking at beautiful faces with lust.
He sinned: foul language, indulgence in impure dreams, arbitrary lustful irritation, intemperance on fasts, Sundays and holidays, incest in spiritual and carnal kinship, excessive panache with a desire to please and seduce others.
Sinned: by theft, embezzlement of someone else's property, deception, concealment of a found thing, acceptance of someone else's thing, failure to pay a debt for false reasons, obstruction in the benefits of others, parasitism, covetousness, sacrilege, lack of compassion for the unfortunate, lack of mercy for the poor, stinginess, extravagance, luxury, game in cards, in general, a disorderly life, greed, infidelity, injustice, hardness of heart.
He sinned: by false denunciation and testimony at the trial, slander and denigration of the good name of his neighbor and his honor, disclosure of their sins and weaknesses. Suspicion, doubt in the honor of one's neighbor, condemnation, duplicity, gossip, ridicule, witticisms, lies, cunning, deceit, hypocritical treatment of others, flattery, groveling before those of higher rank and having advantages and power; talkativeness and idle talk.
I do not have: straightforwardness, sincerity, simplicity, fidelity, truthfulness, respectfulness, degree, caution in words, prudent silence, guarding and defending the honor of others.
He sinned: with bad desires and thoughts, envy, internal adultery, greedy and proud thoughts and desires, self-interest and carnal pleasure.
I do not have: love, abstinence, chastity, modesty in words and deeds, purity of heart, selflessness, non-acquisitiveness, generosity, mercy, humility, I do not diligently care about eradicating a sinful disposition in myself and asserting myself in virtues.
I sinned: despondency, sadness, sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, unclean lust and all my feelings, thoughts, words, desires, deeds and in my other sins, which I did not mention because of my unconsciousness.
I repent that I have angered the Lord my God, I sincerely regret this and wish to repent and continue not to sin and refrain from sins in every possible way.
With tears, I beg You, Lord my God, help me to establish myself in my intention to live like a Christian, and forgive my confessed sins, as Good and Humanitarian.
I also ask you, honest father, in whose presence I confessed all this, that you will be my witness on the day of judgment against the devil, the enemy and hater of the human race, and that you pray for me, a sinner, to the Lord my God.
I ask you, honest father, as having the power from Christ God to allow those who confess and forgive their sins, forgive me, allow me and pray for me a sinner.
SINS AGAINST THE LORD GOD
Proud; did not fulfill the holy will of God, violated the Commandments; sinned by unbelief and lack of faith, doubt in faith; had no hope for God's mercy, despaired; continuing to sin, excessively hoped for the mercy of the Lord; hypocritically worshiped God; had no love and fear of God; did not thank the Lord for all His blessings, for sorrows, illnesses; turned to psychics, astrologers, fortune-tellers, soothsayers; was engaged in black and white magic, witchcraft, divination, spiritualism; sinned with superstition: he believed in dreams, omens, wore talismans; blasphemed and murmured against the Lord in soul and in words; did not fulfill the vows given to God; called on the name of God in vain (without reverence, in inappropriate conversations), falsely swore by the name of the Lord; ate the blood of animals;
Without proper reverence (blasphemously) treated icons, relics, candles, saints, Holy Scripture, etc.; read heretical books and kept them at home, watched heretical TV shows; was ashamed to be baptized and profess the Orthodox faith; did not wear a cross; casually baptized;
Did not perform or poorly performed prayer rule: morning and evening prayers, other prayers, bows, etc., did not read Holy Bible, spiritual literature;
Missed Sunday and holiday services without a valid reason; walked the temple without zeal and diligence; he was lazy to pray, he prayed absent-mindedly and coldly; talked, dozed, laughed, walked around the temple during the church service; inattentively, distractedly listened to readings and chants, was late for the service and left the church before the leave;
She went to church in uncleanliness, touched icons and candles in uncleanliness;
Rarely confessed sins, deliberately concealed them; :
Communion without contrition and fear of God, without proper preparation (3 days of fasting, reading canons and akathists, prayers for Holy Communion), without reconciling with others;
Did not refrain from conjugal cohabitation before communion; communed without repentance after fornication;
He did not obey his spiritual father, condemned the clergy, monastics, grumbled and took offense at them, was jealous;
He did not honor the feasts of God, he worked on holidays;
He violated fasts, did not observe fasting days - Wednesday and Friday;
He listened to Western preachers, sectarians, was fond of Eastern religions; accepted heretical baptism;
Thought about suicide and tried to kill myself
SINS AGAINST NEIGHBORS
He had no love for his neighbors, did not love enemies, hated them, wished them harm;
He did not know how to forgive, he repaid evil for evil;
Not respectful to elders and superiors (bosses), to parents; upset and offended parents;
Did not fulfill the promise;
Did not pay debts; explicitly or secretly appropriated someone else's property;
Beaten, attempted on someone else's life;
She poisoned, killed babies in the womb (abortions, pills, spirals ...), advised others to do them;
Robbed, engaged in extortion, set on fire;
He refused to stand up for the weak and innocent, to help the drowning, freezing, burning, in trouble;
Sinned by laziness in work;
Did not respect other people's work;
Poorly brought up children: outside Christian faith, cursed children; sinned unmercifully: despised and condemned the poor; he sinned with avarice, did not give alms;
He did not visit the sick in hospitals and at home; sinned with hardness of heart; was cruel to animals, birds, in vain killed cattle, birds, destroying trees; he argued, did not yield to his neighbors, argued; slandered, condemned, slandered, gossiped, recounted other people's sins; offended, insulted, enmity with neighbors; scandalized, arranged hysterics, cursed, impudently, behaved arrogantly and freely towards his neighbor;
He was a hypocrite, spoke taunts; angry; irritated, suspected neighbors of unseemly deeds; deceived, gave false evidence;
Behaved seductively, wanting to seduce; jealous;
idle talk; told indecent jokes;
He did not pray for mentors, relatives, enemies;
He corrupted his neighbors (adults and minors) with his actions; sinned by selfish friendship and treason.
SINS AGAINST YOURSELF
He was proud, conceited, considered himself the best; proud;
He wished harm to his neighbor, vengeful; sinned by lack of humility and obedience, self-confidence; lied; envied;
Idle talk, swear; irritated, indignant, remembered evil; shrew; offended, upset; despondent, longing, sad; did good deeds for show; stingy; lazy;
Spent time in idleness, slept a lot and ate (gluttony, secret eating, delicacy); he forgot about Christian humility, virtues, about death and hell, he lived carelessly and negligently, did not correct himself; loved the earthly, the material more than the heavenly, the spiritual; addicted to money, things, luxury, pleasures; overly attentive to the flesh; strove for earthly honors and glory;
Smoked, used drugs, alcohol (drank drunk); played cards, gambling;
Adorned himself to seduce; engaged in pandering, prostitution; sang obscene songs, told jokes, cursed, laughed, danced; watched pornographic films, read pornographic books, magazines; accepted fornication thoughts, defiled himself in a dream; sinned fornication (outside church marriage) (name, quantity); sinned by adultery (changed during a married marriage); allowed liberties to the crown and perversion in marriage; sinned by masturbation, avoided conception by eruption of the seed (the sin of Onan), allowed fornication perversions in marriage; sodomy (fornication of a man with a man), lesbianism (fornication of a woman with a woman), bestiality (fornication with cattle);
Despondency, sadness, sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, lust, impurity and all my feelings, thoughts, words, desires, deeds (you need to name the sins that were not listed and burden the soul), and in other sins.
MANUAL FOR GENERAL CONFESSION
(compiled according to the instructions of Archpriest A. Vetelev)
Our repentance must be sincere and sincere; must come from the depths of the soul, fully conscious of its guilt before God.
Examples: David and the prophet Nathan (50th psalm of David). Ap. Peter and Judas.
Brothers and sisters! Confession is God's judgment upon us. This judgment is the more merciful for us, the deeper and sincerely we repent..., experience...
The Lord says to each of us: "I, I Myself blot out your transgressions for My own sake... Remember... you speak, that you may be justified" (Isaiah 43:25-26).
You may ask, how can one speak, name sins, when we now have not a private, but a general confession? Yes, we have a common confession. But it is also necessary to transform a general confession into a private one, as it were. To do this, each confessor, listening to the listed common sins, should recognize his own among them and, naming them, repent of each of them. For example, a spiritual father speaks of the sin of judging others. The confessor, imbued with the consciousness of his personal sin, says: “I also condemned ... - forgive me, Lord!” In addition, after a general confession, approaching the permissive prayer, the confessor can name those special, personal sins that torment his conscience.
As we begin confession, let us pray: “Lord! Open my soul to repentance and accept my confession.” “Lord, I have sinned against heaven and before You!...
- (see Prayers before confession in the temple).
We, many-sinners (name your names), confess to the Lord God Almighty, in the Holy Trinity, glorified and worshiped by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, all our sins, voluntary and involuntary, in word, or deed, or thought.
We sinned: by not keeping our vows given by us at baptism, but in everything we lied and transgressed and made ourselves indecent before the face of God.
They sinned: lack of faith, unbelief, doubt, wavering in faith, planted by the enemy against God and the holy Church, self-conceit and free opinion, superstition, divination, arrogance, negligence, despair in their salvation, hope in oneself and in people more than in God.
They sinned: by forgetting about the justice of God, by lack of sufficient devotion to the will of God; disobedience to the actions of God's providence, a stubborn desire for everything to be my way, pleasing to people and partial love for creatures and things; not trying to reveal in oneself the full knowledge of His will, faith in Him, good will towards Him, fear of Him, hope in Him and zeal for His glory.
They sinned: ingratitude to the Lord God for all His great and unceasing blessings, poured out in abundance on each of us and on the whole human race, and not remembering them, grumbling at God, cowardice, despondency, hardening of one’s heart, lack of love for Him below fear and failure to fulfill His holy will.
They sinned: by enslaving themselves to passions: voluptuousness, greed, pride, pride, vanity, ambition, covetousness, gluttony, delicacy, secret eating, overeating, drunkenness, addiction to games, spectacles and amusements.
They have sinned: by swearing, by not fulfilling vows, by forcing others to swear and swear, by imperviousness to sacred things, by blasphemy against God, against saints, against every holy object, by blasphemy, invoking the name of God in vain, in bad deeds, desires.
They have sinned: by not honoring the feasts of God, by not going to the temple of God out of laziness and carelessness, by standing in the temple of God without reverence, by talking, laughing, by not paying attention to reading and singing, by distraction of the mind, by wandering thoughts, by walking around the temple during divine services, by premature exits from the temple, in uncleanness they came to the temple and touched its shrines.
They sinned: negligence in prayer, abandoning morning and evening prayers, neglecting attention during prayer, abandoning the reading of the Holy Gospel, the Psalter and other Divine books.
They sinned: by concealing sins at confession, by self-justifying them and diminishing their severity, by repentance without contrition of heart and by not diligently about proper preparation for communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, without reconciling with their neighbors, they came to confession and in such a sinful state dared to come to communion.
They sinned: by breaking fasts and not keeping fasting days - Wednesdays and Fridays, by intemperance in food and drink, by a careless and irreverent image of the sign of the cross on oneself.
They sinned: disobedience, arrogance, self-righteousness, self-will, self-justification, laziness to work and unscrupulous performance of assigned work and deeds on duty.
They sinned: by disrespecting their parents and their elders in age, by impudence, self-righteousness and disobedience.
Sinned: lack of love for one's neighbor, impatience, resentment, irritability, anger, causing harm to one's neighbor, obstinacy, enmity, evil for evil, retribution, unforgiveness of offenses, rancor, jealousy, envy, malevolence, vindictiveness, condemnation, slander, covetousness, lack of compassion for the unfortunate , unmercifulness to the poor, stinginess, extravagance, greed, infidelity, injustice, hardness of heart.
They have sinned: by craftiness against their neighbors, by deceiving them, by insincerity in dealing with them, by suspicion, double-mindedness, gossip, ridicule, witticisms, lies, hypocritical treatment of others, and flattery.
Sinned: forgetting about the future eternal life, forgetfulness of his death and the Last Judgment and unreasonable partial attachment to earthly life and its pleasures.
They sinned: intemperance of their tongue, idle talk, idle talk, laughter, disclosure of the sins and weaknesses of their neighbor, seductive behavior, liberty, insolence.
They sinned: intemperance of their spiritual and bodily feelings, addiction, voluptuousness, indiscreet look at persons of the opposite sex, free treatment of them, fornication and adultery and excessive panache with a desire to please and seduce others.
They sinned: lack of straightforwardness, sincerity, simplicity, fidelity, truthfulness, respectfulness, degree, caution in words, prudent silence, guarding and defending the honor of others, lack of love, temperance, chastity, modesty in words and deeds, purity of heart, non-possessiveness, mercy and humility.
We sinned: despondency, sadness, sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, lust, impurity and all our feelings, thoughts, words, desires, deeds and our other sins, which we did not remember because of our forgetfulness.
We repent that we have angered the Lord our God with all our sins, we sincerely regret this and wish to refrain from our sins in every possible way.
Lord our God, with tears we pray to You, our Savior, help us to establish ourselves in the holy intention to live as a Christian, and forgive the sins we have confessed, as Good and Humanitarian.
The grave sins not listed here must be confessed to the confessor in a special way.
The first commandment of the law of God commands:
They sinned: lack of faith, unbelief, doubt, despair in their salvation, hope in themselves and people more than in God (excessive hope in God's mercy), forgetfulness of God's justice, i.e. impenitence.
Disobedience to the will of God, disobedience to the orders of God's Providence. A stubborn desire for everything to be "my way."
Impatience and murmuring when something is done not according to my desire.
Human pleasing and passionate love for people, creatures, things, occupations.
Unwillingness and negligence to reveal in oneself the memory of God and His will, faith and reverence for Him and fear of Him, hope in Him and devotion to His will, and obedience to Him, love for Him, striving for Him with all one’s being and zeal for glory His. Apostasy. Not having love for God.
2. “DO NOT MAKE YOUR IDOLS”, i.e. fictional god - an idol.
Sinned: Pride, vanity, self-love, voluptuousness, covetousness, hypocrisy, gluttony, overeating, voluptuousness, servility to the spirit of the times and worldly customs, against conscience with violation of the commandments of God, drunkenness, secret eating.
3. "DO NOT SAY THE NAME OF THE LORD YOUR GOD IN VAIN."
They sinned: blasphemy, blasphemy, swearing, swearing, breaking an oath, cursed themselves and others. Violation of vows, disrespect for goodness and pious people. Contempt, mockery of them. Shame to seem like a devout Christian, idle talk, they uttered the name of God in proverbs. “The Lord will not leave without punishment the one who takes His name in vain” (Ex. 20:7).
They sinned: By disrespecting the holidays, not attending the temple out of laziness. Laziness to prayer and reading the Word of God and holy books.
Irreverent standing in church and inattention to reading and singing, wandering thoughts, talking and laughter in church.
Abandoning morning, evening and other prayers.
Concealment of sins at confession and neglect of proper preparation for communion of the Holy Mysteries.
Disrespect for sacred places, careless depiction of the sign of the cross.
Non-observance of posts according to the charter of the church.
Laziness to work and unfair performance of assigned work and deeds by position. Loss of a lot of time in vain in idleness, absent-mindedness, fun, feasts.
Visiting parties, theater, cinema for great holidays.
5. HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER, THAT YOUR DAYS ON THE EARTH LONG.
Sinned: By disrespecting parents and relatives. Disrespect for elders. Ingratitude to benefactors.
Carelessness about the upbringing of children, indulgence or obstinate treatment of them, neglect of their well-being and cruel deeds with them.
6. "Thou shalt not kill."
Sinned: Moral or physical murder of oneself or another.
Oppression and deprivation of the means of life of one's neighbor.
Non-giving help to save the life of a neighbor from premature death.
Anger, insult, slander, hatred, wrecking, enmity, rancor. Tempted to sin. Inactivity, satiety, stubborn resistance to the truth. Bitterness in sins.
Revenge for evil. Complete impenitence. Animals were tortured and killed.
Not accustoming oneself not only not to offend anyone, but also to treat everyone meekly, politely, friendly, edifying, reconcile with the angry, endure and forgive insults. Benefit everyone, even enemies.
7. "DO NOT ADULTY"
They sinned: By profanity, reading immoral books, looking at pictures and actions, lust, pandering, coquetry, fornication, adultery (this kind of sins speak to confessors separately and only in private).
8. "DO NOT STEAL"
Sinned: Theft, deceit, parasitism, covetousness, unmercifulness to the poor, stinginess, drunkenness, wastefulness, playing cards and other games of chance, luxury, dishonesty, injustice, hardheartedness, greed, greed.
9. "DO NOT BRING A FALSE WITNESS AGAINST YOUR NEIGHBOR."
They sinned: False testimony, slander, disclosure of the sins of others, suspicion, condemnation and praise, gossip, doubt in the honor of others, duplicity, gossip, ridicule, obscene jokes, lies, slyness, flattery, dishonesty, insincerity.
10. "DO NOT DESIRE YOUR NEIGHBOR'S WIFE ... NOTHING THAT YOUR NEIGHBOR HAS"
Sinned: Bad desires, thoughts, envy.
Let's check our lives according to the commandments of the Beatitudes.
They did not have poverty of spirit and humility.
They did not have the consciousness of their sinfulness, contrition and weeping for their sins.
They did not live according to the truth of God and did not seek it.
They were not merciful.
They were not pure in heart.
BRIEF CONFESSION
From the penitent is required: the consciousness of their sins. Condemnation of oneself in them. Crush and tears. Self-denunciation before the confessor. Repentance is not only in word, but also in deed, i.e. correction - new life. Faith in the forgiveness of sins. Hatred of past sins.
I confess I am a sinner (name) to the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ and to you, honest father, all my sins and all my evil deeds, even when I have done all the days of my stomach and even thought even to this day.
He sinned: He did not keep the vows of Holy Baptism, he did not keep his monastic (or his) promise, but he lied in everything and made himself indecent before the Face of God.
Forgive us, Merciful Lord (for general confession). Forgive me, honest father (for private confession).
I have sinned: before the Lord with lack of faith and slowness in thoughts, from the enemy planted against faith and the Holy Church; ingratitude for all His great and unceasing good deeds, invoking the name of God without need - in vain.
Forgive me, honest father.
Sinned: lack of love for the Lord, lower than fear; non-fulfillment of His holy will and holy commandments, careless depiction of the sign of the cross, irreverent veneration of St. icons; did not wear a cross, was ashamed to be baptized and confess the Lord.
Forgive me, honest father.
He sinned: he did not keep love for his neighbor, he did not feed the hungry and thirsty, he did not clothe the naked, he did not visit the sick and prisoners in dungeons; From laziness and neglect, I did not learn the Law of God and the Holy Fathers traditions.
Forgive me, honest father.
I have sinned: church and private rules by non-fulfillment, going to the temple of God without zeal, with laziness and neglect; leaving morning, evening and other prayers; during the celebration of divine services, he sinned with idle talk, laughter, drowsiness, inattention to reading and singing, distraction of the mind, leaving the temple during the service and not going to the temple of God due to laziness and negligence.
Forgive me, honest father.
He sinned: boldness in impurity (mental and bodily) to enter the temple of God and touch the shrines.
Forgive me, honest father.
He sinned: by disrespecting the feasts of God; violation of St. fasting and non-keeping of fasting days - Wednesdays and Fridays; intemperance in food and drink, polyphagy, secret eating, poly-eating, drunkenness, dissatisfaction with food and drink, clothing, parasitism (tuna - for free, illegal; poison - eating; parasitism - there is bread for free); own will and mind by fulfillment, self-righteousness, self-will and self-justification; improper veneration of parents, neglect of children in the Orthodox faith, cursing their children and their neighbors.
Forgive me, honest father.
He sinned: unbelief, superstition, doubt, despair, despondency, blasphemy, false worship, dancing, smoking, playing cards, divination, witchcraft, sorcery, gossip, commemorated the living for repose, ate the blood of animals (VI Ecumenical Council, rule 67. Acts St. Apostles, ch. 15.).
Forgive me, honest father.
Sinned: pride, conceit, arrogance, vanity, ambition, envy, arrogance, suspicion, irritability.
Forgive me, honest father.
He sinned: condemnation of all people - living and dead, slander and anger, remembrance of malice, hatred, evil for evil by retribution, slander, reproach, deceit, laziness, deceit, hypocrisy, gossip, disputes, stubbornness, unwillingness to yield and serve one's neighbor; he sinned with malevolence, malevolence, mourning, insult, mockery, reproach and pleasing to people.
Forgive me, honest father.
Sinned: intemperance of spiritual and bodily feelings; impurity of soul and body, pleasure and slowness in impure thoughts, addiction, voluptuousness, an immodest look at wives and young men; in a dream, prodigal desecration of the night, intemperance in married life.
Forgive me, honest father.
I have sinned: impatience with sickness and sorrow, love for the comforts of this life, captivity of the mind and petrification of the heart, not forcing myself to do any good deed.
Forgive me, honest father.
He sinned: by inattention to the promptings of his conscience, negligence, laziness in reading the Word of God and negligence in acquiring the Jesus Prayer. He sinned with covetousness, love of money, unrighteous acquisition, theft, theft, stinginess, attachment to all sorts of things and people.
Forgive me, honest father.
He sinned: by condemning and disobeying the spiritual fathers, grumbling and resentment against them and not confessing his sins before them out of forgetfulness, negligence and out of false shame.
Forgive me, honest father.
Sinned: unmercifulness, contempt and condemnation of the poor; going to the temple of God without fear and reverence, deviating into heresy and sectarian teaching.
Forgive me, honest father.
I have sinned: by laziness, relaxation with it, love of bodily peace, many sleeps, voluptuous dreams, partial views, shameless body movements, touching, fornication, adultery, corruption, masturbation, unmarried marriages, those who have aborted themselves or others, or persuaded someone, have sinned grievously to this great sin - infanticide. He spent his time in empty and idle pursuits, in empty talk, jokes, laughter and other shameful sins.
Forgive me, honest father.
He sinned: despondency, cowardice, impatience, murmuring, despair in salvation, lack of hope in God's mercy, insensitivity, ignorance, arrogance, shamelessness.
Forgive me, honest father.
I have sinned: by slandering my neighbor, by anger, insult, irritation and ridicule, non-reconciliation, enmity and hatred, contradiction,
peeping into other people's sins and eavesdropping on other people's conversations.
Forgive me, honest father.
He sinned: by coldness and insensitivity at confession, by diminishing sins, by blaming others, and not by condemning himself.
Forgive me, honest father..
He sinned: against the Life-Giving and Holy Mysteries of Christ, approaching them without proper preparation, without contrition and fear of God.
Forgive me, honest father.
I have sinned: in word, thought and all my senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, willingly or not, knowledge or ignorance, in reason and foolishness, and do not list all my sins according to their multitude. But in all these, as well as in indescribable oblivion, I repent and regret, and henceforth, with the help of God, I promise to be observed.
But you, honest father, forgive me and forgive me from all these and pray for me a sinner, and on this judgment day testify before God about the sins I have confessed. Amen.
