To help the pious pilgrim: the rite of general confession

To help the pious pilgrim: the rite of general confession

“I am a priest (name of rivers), by the power given to me by God, I forgive and absolve from all sins...”

The Church is not a collection of saints, but a crowd of repentant sinners.
St. Ephraim Sirin

Public confession has been practiced since ancient times. In early Christian communities, the penitent revealed his sins to the entire church (community), and all Christians present prayed for the penitent and considered his sins their own. However, by the 5th century this practice was disappearing. Penitents excommunicated from the Eucharist were not allowed into the church, but stood together with the catechumens in the vestibule, from where they had to leave with them before the start of the Liturgy of the Faithful.

In the 4th century, Saint Basil the Great

introduced secret penances for adulterous wives, who could be killed by their angry husbands (in the early Byzantine Empire, women were not equal in rights with men, and husbands suffered almost no punishment before the state for their murder).
State (imperial) officials also began to demand secret confession. However, up until the 15th century, in Orthodox breviaries one could find an order that the priest lay the hand of the penitent on his neck and thereby take upon himself all the sins of the repentant Christian.

To help the pious pilgrim: the order of lighting candles in the monastery
A burning candle is a visible sign that expresses ardent love and goodwill towards the one to whom the candle is lit.

The rite of confession, which is contained in the breviary today, appeared only in the 17th century.
After the reforms of Emperor Peter I
, who was oriented towards European practice,
the Catholic secrecy prayer
, in which the priest only uttered the words:
“I am a priest
( name of rivers ) , by the power given to me by God, I forgive and absolve from all sins... "
, - priests did not have the right to divulge the sins of penitents.
Also in Russia in the 17th century, a ban was imposed on Communion without confession, so that people would remember that they needed to receive Communion with a clear conscience. Then the norm was established - it is obligatory to receive communion once a year during Great Lent (state decree). Of course, many Christians did just that. And naturally, the priest had no choice but to confess to 200-400 people at the same time. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Saint Righteous John of Kronstadt

popularized general confession. The All-Russian priest (as Father John was called) made it a rule to preach on every Sunday and holiday. Almost every day he celebrated the Divine Liturgy. Thousands flocked to him for confession. St. Andrew's Cathedral of Kronstadt, which could accommodate five thousand people, was always full. It was necessary to use the rite of general confession, during which many, without shame, publicly confessed their sins. His word penetrated deeply into the soul, repentance became so real. At this moment, people could not contain their feelings, they knelt down, loudly shouted out their sins, cried and begged God for mercy... The confession lasted several hours. Real repentance was accomplished, human souls were cleansed from sin, and people's lives changed, they felt the presence of the saint, and his personal holiness was transmitted to everyone around him. After this they received communion from his hands.

Having approached the lectern, crossed yourself and bowed at the waist, without kissing the Cross and the Gospel, bowing your head, you can begin confession.

To help the pious pilgrim: confess and receive communion at the Valaam Monastery
A pilgrimage to a monastery is a spiritual journey, the purpose of which is to get closer in time and space to a healing source, to a shrine.

Later, general confession was held in our churches during times of persecution and war. Many priests were in camps, and in order to get to active churches, which were mostly small, cemetery ones, people had to travel huge distances. They could attend services, perhaps, only a few times a year, say, at Epiphany or Easter. And so they gathered in the temple, and there was one old priest who had just left the camps, who could barely stand and was unable to confess to a large number of people. And then they began to resort to general confessions. It was a difficult time of persecution of the Church, and the people who lived with Christ then, of course, experienced confession a little differently than you and I are experiencing it now.”

Why is the rite of general confession performed today? There may be several reasons. This is the unity of people - the strengthening of the Church. This is also an opportunity for those who are afraid to come to private confession, to repent first together with everyone, and then, in a fit of repentance, come up for an individual conversation with the priest. This is a reason to think and even feel involved in a common sin, this is an opportunity to remember a forgotten sin or hear something that you did not consider a sin, and immediately repent.

Everyone wants to live! Life is sweet to everyone. And life from whom? From one God! Do you want to die? Do you want to suffer forever or not? Oh no no! And sometimes the hour of torment is unbearable - what is it like to suffer forever!

And faith, truth, repentance, virtue, self-denial, and mortification of passions lead to eternal life. But do you want to live, and live forever? How can you not want to!

So repent immediately and correct yourself, call on the Lord God for help: He is near us, like a mother near her infant.

Holy Righteous John of Kronstadt

Literature:

1. To help the penitent. From the writings of St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) / With the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus'; censor Archimandrite LUKA (Pinaev). – M.: Danilovsky Blagovestnik, 1997.
2. Archpriest Alexy Uminsky. The secret of trying on. A book about confession and repentance. – M.: Danilovsky Blagovestnik, 2007.
3. Saint John of Kronstadt in the memoirs of his contemporaries / Comp. S. L. Firsov. – M.: Orthodox St. Tikhon’s Theological Institute, Brotherhood in the Name of the All-Merciful Savior, 1994.

Full Confession

FROM THE PUBLISHERS

This book, intended for both clergy and laity, is the most complete collection of general confessions, confessions of saints and ascetics of piety, confessions compiled according to the Ten Commandments of God, according to the Beatitudes, church commandments, and according to ordeals. The materials included in this unique collection will help both the clergyman when composing a sermon before confession, and every believer when preparing for the great sacrament.

At the end of the book there are numerous lists of sins and their brief explanations, as well as elder advice on preparing for confession.

This book was created to help the confessor. But knowing your sins does not mean repenting of them. The confessor should bring to the confessor not a list of sins, but a feeling of repentance, not a detailed story about his life, but a contrite heart.

His Grace Eusebius, Archbishop of Mogilev, wrote: “He who confesses his sins in good faith is the one who exposes himself to them before his confessor, not only with complete frankness, without lies and guile, but with a firm intention to correct himself in them for the future - this is confession. And as most people do, there is only one list of sins - this is not confession at all, not repentance. Doesn’t the Lord know our sins even without us? But He wants us to ask Him for consciousness of our sins, and, standing before our confessor, try to cast out all sins from our souls, with full determination not to bring them there again, not to be defiled by them any more. This is a confession.

A sinful heart is a thicket that needs to be cleaned and cleaned. Do you know how they prepare a field covered with bushes or weeds for sowing? They try to pull them out by the roots, otherwise new shoots will sprout. So, for us, it is not enough to recount our sins, but at the same time we must get to the very roots of sin, that is, begin to cleanse our very heart from sins. Only with such a condition are confession and communion of the Holy Mysteries saving.”

There is no sin that cannot be forgiven if only you sincerely repent of it and confess it with living faith in the Lord Jesus and hope in His mercy. No matter how great the fall of the Apostle Peter was, the Lord forgave him when he truly repented. It is known that the Apostle Peter called to repentance even those Jews who crucified the true Messiah (see: Acts 2:36-38), and Simon the Magus, the ancestor of all heretics (see: Acts 8:22), and the Apostle Paul permitted the repentant incestuous man, having previously subjected him to temporary excommunication (see: 2 Cor. 2:7).

But Holy Scripture also speaks of those cases or conditions when sins are not forgiven. The word of God mentions blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which will not be forgiven him either in this age or in the future

(Matt. 12:31-32).
It also speaks of “mortal sin,” for the forgiveness of which one is not even commanded to pray (1 John 5:16). Finally, the Apostle Paul instructs that it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the gift of heaven, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come, and have fallen away, to renew them again with repentance, when they again crucify the Son of God within themselves and curse Him
(Heb. 6:4-6).

In all these cases, the reason for the impossibility of forgiveness of sins lies in the unrepentance of sinners. How can sin be forgiven by the grace of the Holy Spirit when blasphemy is spewed against this grace?

But these sins can also be forgiven if they bring sincere repentance. “For,” says St. John Chrysostom about the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, “even this guilt was forgiven by those who repented. Many of those who spewed blasphemy against the Spirit subsequently believed, and everything was forgiven to them.”

CHINA FOLLOWING CONFESSION

Preface and legend about how a confessor should be and say to those who come to him without prohibition:

Accept the thoughts of man, there must be an image [must be a model]
of the good of all, and an abstinent, humble and virtuous, praying at every hour to God that he may give him the word of reason [wisdom], in order to correct those flowing [coming] to him. First of all, you must fast yourself on Wednesdays and Fridays all summer [all year], as the Divine rules command, and from them you yourself must take, and others command you to create. Even if an ignoramus and an intemperate and a sensualist himself [being] can teach other virtues, but even someone who is foolish can listen to him, there is no need to speak about them [what he will talk about], in vain [seeing ] his wicked man, and his drunkard, and Some people should not be drunk with teaching, or should they practice some virtue, even [which] they themselves cannot do? The eyes have gone most truly [the eyes can be trusted more than the ears], says the Divine Scripture. Also, pay attention to yourself [be attentive to yourself], O confessor! Surely, even if one sheep of negligence perishes for your sake, it will be exacted from your hands [it will be exacted from you]. Cursed be it, says the Scripture, who do the Lord’s work carelessly. The great Basil says: beware , lest you be afraid of man in his fall, lest you betray [betray] the Son of God [that is, the sacrament, Body and Blood of Christ] into the hands of the unworthy, lest you be ashamed [be ashamed] of anyone from the glorious ones of the earth [those who are in glory, in honor], lower than the one wearing the diadem [wearing the diadem, that is, the king] , do not take communion. Divine rules do not command those unworthy to receive communion, as pagans are imputed [considered the same as pagans, that is, not Christians]. If they do not turn [correct], woe to them and to those who partake of them. Watch out, the verb: I am not an imam, you will see. Keeping this and this, and above all, immovably observing the church dogmas, will save yourself and those who listen to you. Whosoever dares to receive thoughts and confessions without the commanding letter of the local bishop, he will correctly [according to the rules] accept execution, as a transgressor of the Divine rules, and otherwise what he [not only] ruined for himself, but also what he confessed to him, which is not a confession; and the tree is connected, or allow, the essence is not corrected, according to the sixth rule of the same council in Carthage, and according to the fourty-third [43rd] of the same council.