The Orthodox faith teaches Christians how to confess correctly. This ritual is associated with ancient events, when the Apostle Peter left the bishop’s house and retired into seclusion after realizing his sin before Christ. He denied the Lord and repented for it.
Likewise, each of us needs to realize our sins before the Lord and be able to present them to the priest in order to sincerely repent and receive forgiveness.
To learn how to confess correctly in church, you need to prepare your soul and body , and then we will tell you how to do this.
What is confession in the Orthodox Church
The ritual of liberation from sins is an inseparable part of almost every church Sacrament. In order for the Holy Spirit to descend on a person, it is necessary to sincerely repent and believe in God with all your heart. Even John the Baptist said to the laity during baptism: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!”
Ritual of liberation from sins
Confession is a verbal recognition of one’s sins before the Almighty. The priest is only an intermediary between the believer and the Lord, and therefore is not responsible for the words or actions of the penitent. For absolution to take place, several conditions must be met:
- firm faith in the Savior;
- sincerity;
- speaking sins out loud;
- a strong desire to return to the righteous path;
- resolving conflicts with loved ones;
- hope for the mercy of the Creator.
How does the sacrament happen?
This ritual is carried out in a special place - a lectern, where the Gospel and the cross lie. After you approach, you should cross yourself and place your index and middle fingers on the Gospel. An epitrachelion will be placed on your head. After this, he will read a prayer for the remission of sins and make the sign of the cross. During the prayer field, your epitrachelion will be removed. You will need to cross yourself and kiss the cross, and also ask for a blessing.
Remember that only your sincere desire and faith will help cleanse your soul. Don’t be afraid, they will tell you if you suddenly don’t know something.
The Lord is always with you!
The meaning of confession
The deep meaning of repentance lies not only in admitting one’s sins. Confession is a severe test for a layman, after which he purifies his soul and mind. A sincerely repentant person overcomes fears, pacifies pride, and finds peace. The sacrament allows you to listen to your inner voice, realize your actions, and accept your mistakes. Therefore, it is very important to reject all doubts, step over shyness or confusion in order to free yourself from filth.
Preparation rules
You need to prepare for the ceremony in advance. Before going to the temple, it is necessary to resolve all conflicts with loved ones. It doesn’t matter if you weren’t the initiator. It happens that it is not possible to meet or call, then the right thing to do is to let go of the offense and sincerely forgive everyone.
Some confessors advise making a list of your sins so that you don’t miss anything during confession. You need to constantly watch yourself so as not to stumble, and if you do sin, repent and write down the sin in a notebook. Preparation for the ritual also includes a prayer addressed to the Lord, asking him to see his sins. You need to be able to accept and realize the wrongdoings committed, but not shift the blame for them onto others.
How can a child confess for the first time?
The child’s preparation for such a sacrament occurs long before it takes place. It is laid down in education when he is told about the Church, the Sacraments, the Lord and mortal sins. He is given models of right and wrong behavior, and when he comes to confession, he will be able to compare his actions and characterize them.
Before the first confession, it is necessary to remind the child to warn the priest that this is his first confession. In such cases, the clergy speak with parishioners in a special way, since tact and correctness are very important here. This advice can be used not only in relation to young children, but also to adults who come to such a sacrament in adulthood.
Features of the Sacrament
Confession takes place in church:
- in the morning before communion;
- during evening worship;
- after Vespers.
The rite begins with a common prayer, which is read by the clergy along with the parishioners. Having reached a certain place, the penitent says his name out loud, and then approaches the lectern. While waiting for his turn to confess, the layman mentally prays, remembering the sins he has committed.
Before the priest asking questions, you should be frank and speak without hesitation. At the same time, there is no need to go into too much detail of the sin, telling everything to the last detail. You need to repent sincerely, realizing your sins with all your soul, because only then does the Almighty forgive the sinner.
There is no need to be ashamed or afraid, because all spoken words will remain only between you, the priest and God.
Author's advice
Some churches hold general confession, where the clergyman reads out loud all the major sins. For those who come to confess for the first time, it is better to attend just such a service. The parishioners, listening to the clergyman, note their sins to themselves and repent of them before the Lord.
The Sacrament ends with veneration, after which the clergyman covers the head of the layman with the epitrachelion, reading a prayer of permission. After this, the repentant venerates the cross and asks the priest to bless him.
Common Prayer
General Confession
Repentance
Chapter III. Sacrament of Penance
The threefold worship of Christ the Savior encourages the human body to engage in the penitential work of the soul, so that his sins are blotted out from the Book of Life. “Sin, entering the soul, begins to rule over the human mind,” says St. Ephraim the Syrian, “and subjugates the soul with the help of the skills of the flesh. Sin uses the flesh as its ruler. Through it, he gives the soul a task and demands an account of its execution, and thereby binds the soul like a chain and encourages it to behave unreasonably.”176
Calling the penitents to worship God, the priest at the same time calls them to reasonable penitential acts. Once the prophet Nathan, by his arrival at the house of David, helped the latter to understand that he had sinned by darkening his soul, allowing his body to get bogged down in uncleanness. The repentance that arose in David’s soul had such a strong effect on his heart, accustomed to repentance, that he himself confessed his sin and received forgiveness from God (2 Samuel 11:2).
An example of the repentant confession of the prophet David is brought to the attention of the repentant when Psalm 50 is read, which has been considered repentant in the Church since ancient times. It has always been recommended for home prayer for penitents. In this high and sacred song, David mourned his spiritual fall. With words of humility and contrition of heart, he asks the Lord to have mercy, cleanse and wash him. Therefore, the Church places this psalm at the beginning of repentant prayers, so that the penitent will kindle in himself a feeling of true repentance according to the high example of David’s repentance.177
A repentant feeling arises in a person from the depths of his spirit and involves all his spiritual forces in the repentant process: mind, feelings and will.
The human mind can manifest itself as the ability to analyze and study something according to the laws of logic. Then it is called reason. Reason itself is “neither cold nor hot” (Rev. 3:15), but, submitting to a person’s egoism, it becomes proud, arrogant, and arrogant. In this case, he contributes to the harmful, immoral activities of a person and greatly interferes with his repentance. With reason, a person will never understand what joy or sorrow, beauty or ugliness is. These feelings should be experienced with the heart and given a correct assessment by conscience, moral sense, and reason.
The Lord always calls sinners to Heavenly illumination. "Adam, where are you?" – the first man heard the voice of God back in paradise (Gen. 3:9). God speaks to Cain about this: “Why are you upset? Why is your face drooping? If you do good, don't you raise your face? And if you do not do good, then sin lies at the door; he attracts you to himself, but you have dominion over him” (Genesis 4:6-7).
The center of the mind's activity is the mind. It manifests itself as the ability to make abstract judgments, generalizations and assessments, as the ability of intuitive discernment and contemplation. In the act of repentance, it is very important that the mind of the penitent reveals its agreement with the demands of moral feeling, conscience, duty and the rational-spiritual demands of life. “Only a mind that has reached spiritual understanding,” says St. John Climacus, “is certainly clothed in spiritual feeling... When it appears, then external feelings in every possible way will cease to have a seductive effect on the soul.”178
The repentant psalm of the prophet David, read in confession, helps to awaken the spiritual feeling of the repentant. According to the Genesis writer, “all flesh has corrupted its way on earth” (Gen. 6:12). And how once King Ahab committed a serious crime, but then, seeing the prophet Elijah come to him, he humbly listened to his reproof and said, in the words of Chrysostom: “You found me guilty because I sinned.”179 he was touched before the Lord, walked and cried ... and fasted (Kings 21:2, 18). Likewise, a repentant person acknowledges his sins in the hope that the Lord will forgive him.
Sinful thoughts cause the mind to wander everywhere (Eccl. 6:9) and become foolish (Prov. 18:7). Whereas the soul is called to “glorify God” (Ps. 119:175), bless Him (Ps. 102:2), and remember the wondrous revelations of God (Ps. 139:14). During Repentance, a state awakens in the soul that helps a person to assimilate the meaning of the sayings of Scripture, Divine wisdom (3 Ezra 8:4), and reflect on the law of the Most High (Sir. 39, 3-6). Like the men of old, she begins to thirst for the knowledge of the good works of God's law (Isa. 29:24; Joshua 23:14; Proverbs 1:23).
Remembering at the moment of confession “the fall of those who fell in ancient times and repented, as well as the height and honor that they were awarded after this, the penitent perceives great courage in his repentance,” says St. Isaac the Syrian.180
The “courage” of repentance is associated with the movement of the will of the person confessing his sins. He who thinks about his sin “does not accept” into his soul the “love of truth” (2 Thess. 2:10-11). Those who are committed to sin have speech and thoughts filled with passions, sometimes malicious and cruel. Such a person often speaks down to him. With such thoughts, he revives and excites the will, arouses desires and decisions in it. At confession, the will, submitting to the arguments of the Law of God and its own reason, begins to decisively drive away from itself everything that is displeasing to God (Ps. 100:5,7), makes efforts to fight for undistracted prayer to God. It is to his own will that the repentant owes the measured speech in confession and in life - the firmness of convictions and the unshakable overcoming of infirmities, reckless lusts, frivolous actions and disobedience to Christ's truth.
The will of man, supported by the grace of the Sacrament, directs the attention of the penitent’s mind to the search for truth, revives the memories of the past with clarity and, guided by the consciousness of the goal, selects what is needed for correction from a wide field of knowledge (Acts 17, 22, 31).
The precious gift of mastery of thoughts is a sign of willpower. To feel this power is, of course, “God’s gift that enters our thought.”181
Old Testament humanity always felt this and, conscious of guilt, languished in alienation from God, desired and sought means to atone for it.
All these feelings and aspirations were invested in the sacrifices - they appeared as a need of human nature itself, directed toward its Creator and at the same time aware of the sin committed and responsibility for it. In addition, the sacrificial animal slain in the Old Testament for human sin prefigured “the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8).
The first sacrifices were made by Cain and Abel. At the end of the flood, Noah offered a sacrifice to God. And in the future, sacrifices were made by selected persons known for their righteousness: the heads of clans, the Old Testament patriarchs, called to be judges and reconcilers of people.
Man's desire for God and the feeling of guilt before Him for sin prompted the people of the Old Testament to have a mediator between themselves and God. At that time, God first chooses to serve himself the firstborn of every tribe (Ex. 13:2; 22:29), and then the tribe of Levi (Num. 4:2). Moses becomes God's special chosen one. Through him, on Mount Sinai, the Lord enters into a Covenant with the people of Israel, revealing His will in the Ten Commandments. At Sinai, the standards of moral life are clarified, days of repentance are established, sacrifices are determined for the sins of the entire people, for individual families and for each person. The places of offering sacrifices were also established - the tabernacle, and then the temple of Jerusalem - and the persons serving with it.
The law prescribed confession of the sins of the entire people (Lev. 16:5-34) and the personal sin of each person. “If a man or woman commits any sin against a person, and through this commits a crime against the Lord, and that soul is guilty, then let them confess the sin that they have committed and pay back in full what they are guilty of” (Num. 5). , 6–7). For more serious sins, a sacrifice was prescribed: “If he is guilty of anything ... and confesses what he has sinned, then let him offer to the Lord for the sin that he has sinned, a trespass offering from a flock, a sheep or a goat, for the sin, and the priest will cleanse him from his sin" (Lev. 5, 5
–6).
Sacrifices of guilt and propitiation were offered to God throughout all generations of Old Testament humanity. They served as a prototype of the Sacrifice of Calvary (Heb. 9:13) and an expression of people’s consciousness of guilt for sin and repentant feelings.
When Saint John the Baptist came out to preach repentance, he began his call by repeating the words of the prophet Isaiah: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight” (Isa. 40:3; Matt. 3:3). The ancient prophets believed that the purpose of instructing people was to revive souls for spiritual life, for salvation. Christ will come to free souls from the power of sin. And for this, repent, that is, free yourself from self-delusion and sinful captivity. Humble your hearts, cleanse your souls with sincere repentance and mercy, so that it is possible to “create fruits worthy of repentance” (Luke 3:8). “Repent” means change, correct yourself in such a way that souls and hearts become free from delusions, passions and power sin.
“Prepare the way for the Lord,” the priest calls upon the penitents when reading the 50th Psalm during confession, “make His paths straight” (Matthew 3:3). Delve into the Law of God in order to understand it not according to considerations distorted by sin, but according to the spirit, the inner spiritual meaning, so that the will of a person to perform repentance will be enlivened by it.
Some sign of the ancient victims of guilt in modern confession is the bringing of an unlit candle to the penitent, which he places on the lectern.
Every sinful fall places a mark on a person’s soul, affecting its structure.
In the Sacrament of Repentance, the thread of a person’s sinful life is interrupted and the sinful past loses its power - it is removed from the soul. Sin “is destroyed in a person, ceases to be part of his internal content and belongs to the past that was experienced and crossed out by grace at the moment of the revolution, which, therefore, has nothing in common with the person’s present.”182
Sin in itself does not exist. He was not created by God. Sin came as the fruit of disobedience to God. Holy Scripture calls sin “lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). Sin arises from the effect on the soul of a person of the evil thoughts of the enemy of salvation. “Whoever commits sin is of the devil,” says the Apostle John the Theologian, “because the devil sinned first” (1 John 3:8).
Perceived by reason and feeling, sinful thoughts awaken sinful desires and incline a person’s will to a sinful deed. Committed sin testifies to neglect of God's law, gives rise to alienation from God, and as a result, the spiritual death of a person occurs. Sin provokes the wrath of God. Priest Pavel Florensky says that sin is not a creative act, but “the essence and substance of the self, and it (the self) is entirely determined by it.”183
Saint John Chrysostom asserts that “there is nothing so heavy and unbearable as sin and disobedience”, he calls sin “great evil”, “spiritual leprosy”, a person’s action “against the will of God”, “intoxication of the soul”.184
The Bible often talks about the sinfulness of man. Its manifestations are numerous, varied and begin either with lawlessness and injustice, or with rebellion and violence. The list of sinful acts begins with the story of Adam and Eve, who violated God’s commandment (Genesis 2:16–17), deliberately opposed themselves to God and decided to become “like gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:6). From that moment on, “the history of the spread and development of mankind became at the same time the history of the spread of original sin.”185 Sin, as an inclination towards evil, entered the hearts of people.
The Lord Jesus Christ says that the human heart is the source of “evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, malice, deceit, lasciviousness, an envious eye, blasphemy, pride, madness” that defile it (Mark 7:21).
The Apostle Paul more than once in his sermon denounces sin and calls for a fight against it. Thus, in the Epistle to the Romans, he writes: “And since the pagans did not care to have God in their minds, God gave them over to a depraved mind - to do lewd things, so that they were filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, malice, filled with envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil, slanderous,... proud, resourceful for evil, disobedient to parents, reckless, treacherous, unloving, irreconcilable, unmerciful (Rom. 1:28-31).
“Therefore, put to death your members on the earth,” the apostle writes to the Colossian Christians, “fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil lust, covetousness, which is idolatry, for which the wrath of God will come on the sons of disobedience (Col. 3:5-6). And now...put aside...anger, rage, malice, slander, and foul language from your lips; Do not speak lies to one another, having put off the old man with its deeds and put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who created him” (vv. 8–10).
Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk calls sin both the commission of what is prohibited by God’s law and the failure to fulfill what is commanded by God. Sin begins to exist through deed, word, thought, desire and intention.186 In another place he writes: “Sin is a departure from the Living and Life-Giving God, betrayal of our Baptism, resistance to the holy and good will of God, an insult to God.”187
Bishop Theophan (Gorov) calls sin “poison” and “the destruction of man through unauthorized violation of the law.”188 Based on patristic experience, he traces this process from the pretext (the devil’s mental attack), which, through attention to it, enters the human heart, causing pleasure them, to the point of determination to commit a sinful deed. When repeated repeatedly, sin grows into passion - a persistent sinful inclination, a constant desire to sin, and even love for sinful deeds and objects.189
Passion can be defined as a strong, not controlled by reason, attraction to an object and the desire to enjoy it, which subjugates the will of a person.
Devotees of faith wrote a lot about passions and identified the main ones. “Philokalia” names eight passions: gluttony, fornication, love of money, anger, sadness, despondency, vanity, pride. The Breviary lists the passions under the name of the seven deadly sins: pride, covetousness (theft), fornication, envy, gluttony, anger, laziness (despondency).
Passion, which has developed to the point of a reprehensible moral defect, becomes a disgraceful character trait, and then the name of vice is inherent in it. Vice pushes a person to immoral behavior, to the paths of sin and wrong actions. Sometimes people don't even know about it. “There is an unclean fire,” says St. Macarius the Great, which inflames the heart, runs through all members and encourages people to lewdness and thousands of evil deeds. And those who are irritated, internally, in their hearts, commit fornication. And when evil finds food for itself in this way, they fall into open fornication. Understand the same about the love of money, about vanity, about arrogance, about jealousy, about irritability.”190
One vice, as a rule, gives rise to another. For example, hatred comes from irritability, irritability from pride, pride from vanity, vanity from unbelief, unbelief from hardness of heart, hardness of heart from negligence, negligence from laziness, laziness from negligence, negligence from despondency, despondency from cowardice, cowardice - from voluptuousness. And other vices depend on each other.191
A sign of the effectiveness of the Sacrament of Repentance is the destruction of the attractiveness of the power of sin. “The past is destroyed by the sacrament,” says St. Cyril of Jerusalem.192
“Sin is a terrible evil,” states the same saint, “but an evil that can be healed. It is terrible for one who retains sin, but it is easy to heal for one who puts away sin through repentance. Imagine a man holding a burning coal in his hand. While the coal is in his hand, no doubt he is burning it. But if he throws away the coal, he will also remove from himself what was burning.”193
The prayers of repentance read by the priest at the beginning of confession are aimed precisely at ensuring that a person, through the word of confession, removes from himself any reprehensible inclination, any wrong act.
“You must rely more on the one who gave birth to you in God,” St. Gregory of Nyssa addresses the repentant Christian, “than on those who gave birth to you in the body. Feel free to reveal your secret sins to him, like hidden wounds to a doctor. He will take care of your honor and your health. Shed bitter and abundant tears before him, so that he too will unite his tears with yours. Accept the priest, as a father, into the participation and communication of your sorrow (for sins).”194
Conscious of his participation in the repentant work of a Christian, the priest, after the penitential troparions, cries out: “Lord, have mercy” (40 times).
List of major sins
The list of sins may vary for each person. The Church identifies 7 main passions:
- pride;
- envy;
- gluttony;
- fornication;
- anger;
- greed;
- laziness.
The Church identifies 7 main passions
Women's sins
The full list of women's sins for confession includes 473 items. It can be viewed in detail in Orthodox literature. We will give just a few sins:
- selfishness in business;
- complaints and dissatisfaction with life;
- disgust;
- doubts;
- rage, anger or anger;
- blaming others for your failures;
- dream interpretation;
- not honoring parents;
- a waste of time;
- misbehavior in church;
- wastefulness;
- foul language;
- superstition;
- adultery;
- idle talk;
- idleness;
- trampling on God;
- alcohol addiction;
- breaking oaths;
- thoughts of suicide;
- failure to fast, etc.
Priests advise re-reading the full list in advance so as not to miss anything during the Sacrament of Confession.
Men's sins
The list of men's sins for confession is somewhat shorter than the women's:
- blasphemy;
- indecent behavior in the temple;
- cruel ridicule;
- evasion of one's direct responsibilities;
- breeding gossip;
- ignoring requests for help;
- humiliation of one's neighbor;
- boasting;
- impudence;
- doubts about God;
- cowardice;
- causing physical harm to the offender;
- negative emotions;
- theft.
Jesus Christ commanded to confess for his sins. Whatever sins you commit, you need to admit them honestly, without hiding them, because it is impossible to hide even the most secret things from God.
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When can I confess for the first time?
You can often hear the question of when and how to confess in church for the first time? Church ministers note that the first confession should be held upon reaching seven years of age. It is generally accepted that everything done before this period has already been redeemed by Christ.
This age limit is called the period of responsibility and awareness. They say that from this moment the baby moves to a new stage - adolescence. He already has an understanding of the meaning and consequences of his actions. That is why it is recommended to conduct confession at this age.
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