What is a general confession? Why is it needed by future priests and not intended for the laity at all? Is it necessary to repent of those sins that you have never committed? Why do priests oppose mass repentance for the "sin of regicide"? How to treat complete lists sins? Look for answers in the article.

Why should a person go to confession?

Every person wants to be better. And this aspiration is connected not only with appearance or professional opportunities. We want to be kinder, more attentive to relatives, more merciful, more responsive. This, one might say, is a basic spiritual need. After all, man was created for holiness, which implies constant moral improvement.

The Monk John of the Ladder has a work called "The Ladder". The saint compares this spiritual growth with a ladder: step by step, step by step, a person rises higher and higher.

But the movement of each of us can hardly be called direct and unhindered. On the life path can not do without many sinful falls - from mental condemnation to many years of resentment and even murder.

And what to do in such situations when a person realizes his guilt, repents of it, wants to change? Merciful God accepts our repentance in the Sacrament of Confession.

When we feel a spiritual need for cleansing and healing from sin, we go to confession, in the presence of a priest we repent of our vices. But we bring repentance not to the priest, but to God himself. The priest is only a witness and an experienced mentor. He can wisely advise us on how best to act in this or that situation, to overcome our attachment to this or that sin. The confession itself is accepted by the Lord. And you can't hide anything from Him: God sees everyone's heart.

Why can't you hide your sins?

If a person deliberately concealed some kind of sin in himself, then it turns out that he wanted to deceive God, and this is an even greater offense. That is why in the prayer before the Sacrament of Confession there are these words:

Here is His icon before us, but I (the priest) is only a witness to testify before Him everything that you tell me; if you hide something from me, you will fall into a double sin.

What does it mean? If you have already come to a spiritual hospital, that is, to a temple for confession, repent before God of everything that torments you. Then you will get relief. Many believers really feel like a stone is falling from their hearts.

This is another confirmation that the Sacrament of Confession has a result: the Lord has forgiven our sins. There is only one thing left: to correct your life not in words, but in deeds, and try not to return to the confessed vice.

How not to turn confession into a formality

In our time, the meaning of repentance in the presence of a priest has been somewhat distorted. Some consider this unnecessary, others go to another extreme - for any little thing they run to the priest for advice and “demand” to listen general confession. How to reach the golden mean?

In monasteries, there is a practice of confessing thoughts: a monk reveals to the confessor not only his actions, but also all sinful thoughts. An experienced mentor gives wise recommendations, to which the monk is sure to listen. After all, monastic life presupposes the renunciation of one's will and "submission" to the confessor.

In the world, everything is different. Man is responsible for his own life and actions. The priest, knowing your situation, can only give advice. Therefore, it is not necessary to run to the priest with all the household trifles and ask whether to go on vacation by train or bus and whether to take the child to kindergarten.

We need to deal with spiritual issues. In order not to turn the Sacrament of Confession into a kind of indulgence and formality, it is worth remembering its purpose and following these recommendations.

Come to repentance in the temple when you feel a special spiritual need.
Repent of your sins consciously. First of all, name the thing that torments you the most.
If you use lists of sins for confession, then in no case do not rewrite everything in a row without understanding and awareness.
Don't make confession a formality. After all, the God of the Church is a living God, a Person. And with a person it is worth maintaining a lively, trusting relationship. If you verbally “repent” of some misdeed, but deep down in your soul you don’t consider it a sin at all, then aren’t you acting hypocritically?
After the Sacrament of Confession, try to bring the fruits of repentance. Ideally, renounce the confessed vice. If there is a temptation to return to it, then control your thoughts and, if possible, cut off sinful manifestations already at this stage. After all, as you know, any sin begins with a thought. At one time, Eve entered into a dialogue with the sinful thoughts that the devil instilled in her. If she had discarded them immediately, then perhaps everything would have ended completely differently.
No matter how pessimistic it may sound, but approach the Sacrament of Confession with the feeling that this chance may be the last. Therefore, try to reveal your spiritual state as much as possible and get relief.

General confession: an aptitude test for a priest?

V Orthodox Church It is customary to confess to adults and children who have reached the age of seven.

Of course, the repentance of an adult differs significantly from that of a child, because a child has not yet had time to sin as much as a father or mother.

The confession of the clergy also looks somewhat different. It is not performed very often, because the parish priest, if he serves himself, cannot leave the church and go to the confessor for confession. Such an event is definitely planned.

The so-called general confession. This means that a person repents of all the sins that he can remember (regardless of whether he confessed them before or not). It is necessary to carefully prepare for such a Sacrament so as not to miss anything if possible. And this “procedure” lasts not the usual 5-10 minutes, and sometimes even 1.5-2 hours.

What is it for? Not just to prepare to receive the grace of the priesthood. The confessor must find out if the candidate has any barriers to becoming a deacon, and then a priest, and possibly even a bishop. There are sins, after the commission of which, even when a person sincerely repented, confessed and gave his word not to return to this vice, a person who wants to become a priest cannot be ordained.

As Serbian Patriarch Pavle said:

You can become a saint, but never a priest!

Among the canonical obstacles that a general confession can reveal, you will find criminal offenses (theft, murder, etc.) and adulterous sins. And the future priest must have a spotless reputation.

If he is a family man, then his wife must be Orthodox and, like her husband, remain chaste until marriage. There can be no question of divorce in the family of a priest, as well as marriage with a divorced woman and remarriage.

There are other obstacles for those wishing to take holy orders. Confession of all your sins ever committed will help to reveal their presence or absence.

Lists of sins and repentance for regicide: how to avoid extremes?

Today, among believers, a kind of “movement” has formed for a general confession for the laity. Many Orthodox in the world and even some monks urge everyone to go through the rite of popular repentance and repent of a whole list of sins. It is noteworthy that a significant part of these offenses the person himself did not commit.

Also, people are offered to repent of the "sin of regicide", because "the blood of the royal family still lies on us and our children."

What does this kind of logic lead to?

First extreme— people come to the priest with a long list of sins. And they did not compile this list, guided by their conscience, but simply copied it from the Internet. Sometimes people do not even know what this or that sin means. But how can you repent of something that you did not do or do not even understand?

Second extreme- people come to the priest not with what torments them, but to repent of the "sin of regicide." They suffer from a lack of love, bad relationships with relatives and friends, condemnation and hypocrisy, but they seem to be trying to abstract from real spiritual problems and repent of what they were not involved in.

Observing these extremes, the priests call people not to a general confession (which is really only needed by those who are ordained) and the rank of nationwide repentance, but to conscious repentance.

Is there really a "general confession" for the laity?

Although this concept of “generalism” is firmly entrenched in everyday life, there is no need for such a confession for the laity. Let's try to explain our idea.

When a Christian comes to the Church, he regularly goes to confession, takes communion, and, if possible, gathers together. If we do this consciously and try to get rid of our vices, then God forgives and has mercy.

In the sacrament of repentance, we receive the forgiveness of sins. Why repent a second time (if we never returned to this sin) that the Lord has already forgiven us?

When a person has committed a particularly serious offense, the priest can assign him a penance. This is a kind of corrective work on one's soul - prayer, fasting, almsgiving. By doing them, a person acquires a feeling of repentance and especially asks God for forgiveness. Usually, after the time of penance, the believer himself feels that the Lord has accepted his repentance.

First and last

Some people call the first and dying confession the general confession. It is believed that if a person at a conscious age comes to faith, then he must go through such a “procedure” - to repent of all his sins, which he only remembers.

But it will be nothing more than first confession. Whatever age we may be, the first repentance in the presence of a priest necessarily requires enhanced preparation and time.

Even seven-year-old children are worried when they go to confession for the first time. What can we say about adults who have accumulated a myriad of sins in their lives?

When a believer comes to this Sacrament consciously, and not under the pressure of relatives or friends, he experiences two completely different states: sinful heaviness and amazing lightness after repentance.

It also has a special status deathbed confession which is often referred to as the general For a person, this is the last opportunity to carry out a “spring cleaning” in his soul, to remember what tormented him (sometimes for many years), to forgive all offenders. Therefore, she is always sincere and especially honest.

A dying man is afraid not to reveal his vices, but to die without repentance. But such a confession has nothing to do with long lists of sins. It is unlikely that a dying person will repent of everything in a row, which he never did. On the contrary: the patient will tell with maximum reference to his life.

Revolution in consciousness

Sometimes the general confession is called the one that especially influenced life. For example, a man went to a monastery for a week, in silence, prayer and labor overestimated his deeds, matured for repentance.

Usually in monasteries on weekdays, when there are few people, there is time for a long and thorough confession. In addition, the hieromonks will not only patiently listen to your confession, but will also give you a lot of valuable advice.

But this is also not a general confession. Why? Yes, because for a believer, in a sense, every repentance is general. The Lord accepts it, so you need to open your heart to God. But we should not return again to those sins from which we have long been cleansed.

When we clean the house, we try to put everything in order so that every corner sparkles with cleanliness. But we do not remember how much dirt was removed from this room last year. We are just happy with the cleanliness. It is the same with repentance.

Confession and the Eucharist are two different Sacraments

Modern gradations of confession into "general" and "everyday" are associated with the unification of the sacraments of confession and communion. In the ancient church, in order to receive communion, it was not necessary to go to repentance in the presence of a priest. If you preserve spiritual purity and do not hold grudges, then you have no obstacles to the Eucharist. But the first Christians took communion at first every day, then on Sundays... If a person did not attend the Liturgy for three Sundays and, accordingly, did not receive communion, he was excommunicated from the Church.

Today, many people consider it normal to confess and take communion only once a year, during Great Lent. If we begin to repent as we realize our sins and regularly take communion, then we will not turn to the “general” confession and the longest lists of other people's sins. Yours is enough.

On the importance of seeing your sins, not repentance regicide says theologian Alexei Osipov:

Take it, tell your friends!

The role of the general confession

All first confessions are usually carried out without preparation. Therefore, they are more like answers, questions from the confessor about whether you have sinned in any way or not. And in general, in an ordinary confession, a person turns to his superficial sins, without turning to the depths of his soul.

However, there is no point in recounting the same sin again. You should not constantly stir up the past if there are sins in the present. You can't fix the past. It is the confession of recently committed sins, or the desire to sin, that can help to avoid or correct many mistakes.

Reason for the General Confession not that previous confessions do not have the desired effect. The reason is that you need to set out a single picture about all the sinful moments of your life. only whole and full story will allow the priest to heal the soul, only in this case will there be a relief of the soul and the remission of sins.

Often it is a general confession that gives a person the opportunity to understand where he stumbled, to see a complete picture of his life, every right and wrong decision.

As St. Ambrose of Optina said, the cross that is intended to be carried by a person is made of wood grown from the soil of the heart. By studying your heart, you can understand what the purpose is.

Confession helps a person get rid of a heavy psychological burden associated with voluntary and involuntary sins. Confession heals the soul of a person.

It is recommended to agree on confession in advance, you should choose a convenient time to confess in a calm atmosphere and bring the sacrament of confession to the end.

An important question - how should one confess? When answering it, one can cite the words of a wise old man - the priest is ready to listen not only to negative moments, but also to a story about good things. Lead the story from the beginning of self-awareness to the last moment, include each event if it awakened one or another reaction in you.

The choice of a confessor is an equally important aspect. It is best to turn to a priest who has already been told about your sins before, since he already knows a part of your life.

General confession is carried out within a few hours. It is important not only to tell about each sinful act, but also to explain the circumstances under which they were committed. Talk about your pain, about everything that you have kept in yourself for a long time.

There are also examples when, after such a confession, a person received healing.

General confession was held in Moscow, the penitent was a person baptized from childhood, familiar with the Orthodox Church, but not showing much zeal in everything related to religion. And this guy is losing his voice. The only way he sees the conversion to faith.

For the priest, the key moment for help was the description of the life of Barsanuphius of Optina. Once a boy came to the venerable elder, who had not spoken since birth. The priest suggested that dumbness is a consequence of sin, and the child cannot talk about it at confession, so he is silent all the time. The priest leaned close to the child's ear and said a few words in a low voice. The child's face showed fear, however, he nodded and was able to repent of his sin. Now he could speak again.

The same thing happened to the man above. He brought a piece of paper on which he outlined his confession. After that, he was able to speak again and now constantly visited.

Therefore, it does not matter how it happens, the main thing is that the confessional speech came from the deepest beginnings of the soul and heart. The city of Moscow provides a good opportunity to confess.

Countless are mine voluntary and involuntary, hidden and open, big and small sins that were committed in word, deed, in thoughts, at will and compulsion, in different time periods of life, Merciful God, from birth to this moment.

He sinned with an ungrateful attitude towards the Lord and His great blessings:

He is also sinful in that he did not keep the vows given at Baptism. Sinful in that he lied and showed self-will. Sinful because he did not keep the Commandments, did not listen to the traditions of the Holy Fathers.

It is also wrong that:

rude;
impudent;
was disobedient, severe, timid;
humiliated;
was obstinate;
shouted outrageously;
irritated;
raised his hand;
quarreled and quarreled.

Sinful because:

slandered;
was careless;
in a hurry;
sarcastic;
was hostile, hated;
jealous and incited.

Sinful because:

He was also sinful because he was absent-minded, joked, joked, laughed, mocked, had crazy fun, idled, left prayer, service, fasting and good deeds.

It is also wrong that:

was stingy;
wondered;
was cold and greedy;
despised the poor and the poor.

He was sinful because he was greedy, idle, sneaky, lied, cunning, was careless and disrespectful.

Sinful because he did not believe, blasphemed, doubted, was frivolous and fickle, indifferent and insensitive, inattentive.
He was sinful because he grieved immeasurably, despaired, hatched crafty and evil crafts, was excessively sad, and fell into despair.
He was also sinful in that he remembered God in vain, was cowardly, hopeless, hypocritical, borrowed, found fault, oppressed, stole, extorted, appropriated someone else's.
He was sinful because he abused the gift of God, indulged in sins, talked idle, swindled, was cold towards his neighbor and towards God, incited to commit evil deeds.
Sinful due to the fact that he was vainly spending his time, spreading his false opinions, uttering curses without thinking, being ambitious, pretending, doing obscene things, mocking, laughing, participating in a card game.
He was sinful because he allowed himself to omit prayer in the mornings and evenings, forgot to be baptized before eating, used foul language, and ate after sunset.
He was also sinful in that he gave wrong advice, was lascivious, voluptuous, picky about food, read romance novels and films.
Sinful in that he did not care for the Gospel and the Psalter, he invented excuses for sins.
Sinful because of the increased interest in clothes. He is sinful because he is proud, vain, dishonestly performed his duties, and bore false witness.
Sinful with many impurities, with the participation of the enemy, in a state of sleepy dreams. He committed sins by fornication by nature and through nature.
He is also sinful in that he omitted services, was late, visited temples of other religions.
He is sinful because he did not fulfill the rules of prayer.
Sinful in that he gave alms with evil thoughts, did not visit the sick. Sinful due to the fact that he did not perform actions according to the command of the Lord: the burial of the dead, the feeding of the hungry, the quenching of the thirst of the thirsty.
He is sinful because he did not honor Sundays and holidays properly, did not pray.
He was also sinful in that he forgot the Saints and drunkenly spent the holidays, slandered and condemned, was unfaithful.
He was sinful because he came to the temple of God without humiliating his heart, was not reverent during divine services, exalted himself, was angry, flattered and was two-faced. Sinful because he was impatient, cowardly and malevolent. Sinful because he spoke foul language, wanted excess food, gave himself up to a whim, spared alms to the poor.
Sinful in condemnation, contempt and hostility, greed and impurity.
He was also sinful in that he prayed coldly and absent-mindedly, was not zealous, only lazy and idle. Sinful of chatter and gossip, games and idle activities.
He often committed sins voluntarily, willingly, and seduced others.

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, our Father, pray for me, a sinful and unworthy servant.

Where can I see the schedule of the general confession at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra?

General confession according to all the Commandments of the Lord can be carried out at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Periodically published edition of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra contains all the necessary information, including the schedule.

How to prepare for a general confession?

All thoughts that you want to voice, it is better to fix on paper. Write the text in advance, review it several times, cross out unnecessary words, add missing ones. This will help you formulate your thoughts correctly. With careful preparation, the confession procedure can be completed in half an hour. This will help with timing.

Preparatory process will allow you to reconsider your whole life and choose a further path, change something. Without a preliminary stage, this is difficult to understand.

To understand the mistakes and the need for changes, you can read numerous books and brochures, as well as special questionnaires.

Everyone needs to prepare for confession. It is important to do this for people who have committed some mortal sins: fornication, adultery, abortion, murder, theft, child molestation.

You can compare the preparatory stage with water in a vessel: if the water is agitated, it will be cloudy. One has only to leave the water alone - it will become transparent, the turbidity will settle, allowing you to separate clean water. So, a person, after a while in a calm environment, can realize himself, praying to the Lord, trying to be impartial.

Some points and explanations

The essence of the general confession not just listing all the deeds in your life. Such a confession is delivered once, so the need for careful and special preparation is obvious.

The everyday life of every believer is determined by some inertia - sins are constantly repeated in it, the same mistakes are constantly repeated, the reason for such lies in the Christian's susceptibility to passions, it is very difficult to overcome them. Therefore, not only the general full confession is important, but also periodic ordinary confessions. Even the Greek sages advised to constantly review your whole life and notice everything with which problems arise, to associate such negative phenomena with your actions, inactions and decisions.

Each confession brings a feeling of clarity and lightness, but a general confession always penetrates deeper, not allowing self-justification. It is this confession that can help everyone bring himself to clean water.

Often, when confessing, a believer diligently sets forth minor and not very significant things. As a rule, at the same time, there are very significant situations and actions in his life, which should be told about. But a person, unconsciously, hides behind such petty and petty deeds, ignoring the real opportunity to receive absolution of sins and thereby improve his spiritual life. Sometimes, when hiding a person behind his insignificant deeds, he gets the feeling that God has left him. But it's not.

The Lord does not leave, he can only punish for such things, while at the same time strengthening the faith of a Christian. Although the feeling that you are abandoned by God may arise due to the tricks of the enemy. Any confession brings a person closer to the Lord, thus humiliating the enemy. It is precisely for this that he can thus avenge himself.

Quite a popular question among parishioners, what age is the most suitable in order to start confession with him. The correct answer to this question will not be a specific figure, since each believer has his own age. The general recommendation is reduced to the age at which a person remembers himself.

Formally, only the age at which it is necessary to conduct confession with a child is set - seven years. Often at this age the child has nothing to say, or he simply does not know how and what he needs to say. Although there were also cases when a three-year-old child independently asked his parents to take him to a confessor for confession.

Immediately after birth, the baby begins to experience the burden of passions, cries with fear, wants to always be with his mother, needs food. With age, additional desires, needs and reasons are added to all this - a bad mood, irritability, resentment, and so on. Therefore, it is better to start confessions from the moment when you begin to feel the harmful effects of passions.

Download the archive (rar) with the texts of the "general" confession:

EDITORIAL

Dear brothers and sisters!

We have long wanted to offer downloadable texts for the so-called. full (general) confession.

Yes, of course, you and I confess our sins before each sacrament of receiving the Holy Mysteries of Christ. But these confessions are usually short. We repent of those sins that we have committed since the last confession (i.e. usually in the last 1-3 weeks).

A full confession, or as it is also called, a general confession, is a confession during which we name all the sins committed in our entire lives. After all, very often we forget our sins, and sometimes we don’t even know that this or that action, word, thought is a sin. And if we don’t know, then we don’t repent of it. But ignorance of the laws does not exempt from responsibility for their violation. And when we finish our earthly journey, the demons will unfold their charters during the ordeals and, without any mercy and condescension, will convict us of all these "unknown" and forgotten sins.

Therefore, we need at least occasionally, but to carry out a "general cleaning" in our soul, washing and cleaning all its nooks and crannies and dark places from sinful dust and dirt.

Unfortunately, big number priests do not want to conduct such confessions. They start talking about the ambiguity of attitude towards them, and so on. But, as a rule, everything is explained simply. General confession takes an hour, and sometimes longer. Therefore, of course, priests do not want to spend so much time on one person. And if he has 100 or 500 people in his parish?! That's a lot of work to put in...

Therefore, based on our own experience, we offer you the following way out. Invite a priest to your home on weekdays as if you were holding a service (with the appropriate payment) and ask him to take confession. He only needs to listen to your confession and read the permissive prayer. As a rule, such priests are not hard to find.

As for the confession itself. The texts of confession sheets we offer for downloading were taken from an archimandrite close to us (a former abbot of monasteries, and now the confessor of one of them), who has been conducting such full confessions for many years.

When we confessed ourselves according to these sheets, the priest told us that it was not necessary to choose from the lists which sins we had committed, and which ones, in our opinion, we had not committed. He said, "With a feeling of deep repentance, read all the sins without choosing them. And even say that Lord, I have sinned more than that, but I do not remember all my sins." Why are we focusing on this? Yes, because we have a lot of thinkers who convince us that it is impossible to repent of those sins that a person did not commit. What is it, as it were, a slander and slander against oneself. And if you took upon yourself a sin that you did not commit, then the Lord will count it as perfect for you and will strictly ask for it.

This is a soul-destroying delusion. It's impossible to repent! And indeed, is it really possible that when reading the evening rule every day, or preparing for Communion, these believers choose from prayers the sins that they have committed that day, and which they have not committed, they do not read? Unlikely. And if they do, then they can only sympathize ...

Yes, there are sins that we think we have not committed. But is this really so and can we be 100% sure of this? Of course not. Moreover, we often watch TV, films, various programs, listen to the radio, etc. And when we look, we listen, we will definitely accumulate sins. What we look at enters into us, and we become, as it were, accomplices of the iniquities being committed on the screen.

Yes, and let's look at our holy fathers and elders. They cried all the time and considered themselves the most sinful people on earth: "Everyone will be saved, only I will perish." And when they were undeservedly blasphemed, insulted, accused of sins that they had not committed, they always humbly agreed with this (they did not agree only with accusations of heresy).

We will also point out why we included in the lists of confession sheets the Order of All-People's Repentance, which was previously read in Taininsky.

Our close archimandrite, from whom we took these sheets of confession, told us such a case. Most recently, his mother and father came to him and brought their son between the ages of 20 and 30. He was like a dead soul. He walks, looks, but generally does not react to anything - "a walking corpse." The priest said that these people were not churched: they practically did not go to church, did not go to confession, did not read the Gospel, etc.

He invited them to undergo a general confession. They agreed because they were ready to do anything in order to help their son get out of this state. They went through a full confession, but the archimandrite said that he did not feel any changes in the state of their child. And then the priest offered them to go through the Mystery Rite of repentance.

They agreed. And after passing the rank of repentance and resolution from sins, incl. and from the sin of regicide, the son, as it were, woke up and came to his senses. It was a real miracle.

Therefore, we have included in the archive with texts the Order of All-People's Repentance, as well as the confession of sins against the royal power.

Brothers and sisters!

You can choose by yourself or together with the priest those confession sheets that you consider necessary for yourself. You can divide them into two or three confessions. We read them all, adhering to the principle "you can't spoil porridge with butter." It is very good if all family members go through a full confession.

Repentance is impossible! The main thing during confession is our deep repentant and humble feeling before the Lord. There is no need to make excuses and squeeze out of the mass of sins those that, as it seems to us, we did not commit. And it does not matter if some of the sins you read are not entirely clear to you. But they are well known to demons. (of course, it would be nice to go over the sins on the eve of confession and try to find out about them, what they mean)

Most importantly, don't listen to the thinkers who will begin to convince you of the invalidity and futility of the general confession. Such people are known evil spirits and willingly or unwittingly try to harm you. We have a lot of examples when, after going through a full confession, people's lives have changed dramatically for the better, first of all, necessarily in spiritual sense and, as a rule, in everyday life.

Help us Lord! Amen

P.S. Almost all questions that may arise on the above list of sins against the Royal power, the answers can be found in the notes of the author-compiler

Download the archive with the texts of the "general" confession: (downloads: 23281)

Download the archive (zip, for Linux) with the texts of the "general" confession: (downloads: 9061)

CURE FOR SIN

The publication of the brochure was carried out by the grace of God by the Saratov

St. Alekseevsky Convent with the assistance of the Orthodox Foundation "Blagovest"

An old man enters a pharmacy and asks the pharmacist: “Do you have a cure for sin?” - “Yes,” the healer answers and lists: “Dig up the roots of obedience, gather the flowers of spiritual purity, pick the leaves of patience, gather the fruits of non-hypocrisy, do not get drunk with the wine of adultery, dry all this with fasting abstinence, put good deeds in a saucepan, add water to the tears of repentance , salt with the salt of brotherly love, add the bounty of alms, and put in everything the powder of humility and kneeling. Take three spoonfuls on the day of the fear of God, put on the clothes of righteousness and do not enter into idle talk, otherwise you will catch a cold and fall ill with sin again.

This brochure is not intended for everyone, but for those who are spiritually ill and in great need of healing and spiritual healing. So, for example, St. Ambrose and Elder Hilarion of Optina advised some believers, in order to appease their consciences, to resort to a detailed confession of sins committed from the age of seven.

If it is impossible to make such a confession at once (due to a large number of sins), you can gradually confess to one priest 20-40 sins at a time (reception), distributing all your sins.

Four examples testify to the effectiveness of such confession. Some spiritually ill repented for about an hour (at home), the confessor sat and patiently listened to confession. At the end of the confession of sins, the confessor read a permissive prayer. Then the demon shouted through the mouth of the sick woman: “What have you done! All my life I worked and wrote sins to her, and in one hour you made my charter empty!

Another spiritually ill person also repented on this confession. Soon the confessor received a letter from her, in which she reported that after confession, a gelatinous monster with ribs came out of her.

When one believer asked a friend to retype this list of sins on a typewriter, the demon cried out through her lips: “I will copy everything that you give, except for them.” And she refused to reprint. Another believer later said that after a detailed (first such) confession, her mind was enlightened.

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What is the difference between a general confession and a “regular”, “everyday” one?

In general, we can say that this is a confession for the entire life a person has lived - from the age at which he began to distinguish good from evil, until the moment when he began this confession. It would seem that a person comes to the temple, comes to the first confession - and it is then that he must repent of everything that he sinned before coming to the Church. But this, as a rule, does not happen due to various circumstances. First of all, because the vast majority of people come to their first confession completely unprepared. And most often a person does not even confess for the first time, but answers the leading questions of the priest: has he sinned in this, has he sinned in that, has he sinned in something else. But even if a person who came to confession for the first time prepared for it, and asked someone how to confess, and even read some books, he most often sees his life still quite superficially. He sees and confesses only those sins that burden his soul most obviously and which are of particular concern to him at the present moment, while he does not seem to notice other sins. Firstly, because he does not yet have that spiritual vision that allows him to turn to his own soul and find what is hidden in it. Secondly, because sometimes the Lord Himself, as it were, hides most of his sins from a person until the time comes: after all, as some holy fathers said, if the Lord immediately revealed to any of us our sinfulness as it is, then, perhaps we simply could not stand the horror of the spectacle that presented itself to us ...

And so it turns out that a person, perhaps, has repeatedly confessed, and then suddenly from someone he heard this very phrase - a general confession. How to prepare for it and how to go for it?

And here various doubts, questions, misunderstandings begin. Some people say: “Well, after all, we have already repented of all sins, why should we confess them a second time? After all, it turns out that there is some disbelief in the power and effectiveness of the sacrament of Confession in this?

Indeed, we are talking about the fact that if a person once confessed something, then there is no need to confess the second and third time in the same non-repeating sin. You can sometimes see how someone comes and repents over and over again of those sins that took place once in a distant youth, and at the same time, for some reason, he does not confess those sins that he already does directly at this time closest to confession . This is one of the tricks of the enemy: he constantly sends a person back to the past, which can no longer be corrected, and thus leads away from the present, in which much can and should be changed. But the need for a general confession is due to something completely different. It is necessary to speak on it about previously committed - including confessed - sins, not because of disbelief in the effectiveness of the sacrament, but simply because some kind of wholeness is necessary: it is necessary to present in the aggregate everything in which we have sinned up to this point. Elder Paisios of Athos generally believed that when a person comes to a new confessor, then no matter how many times he has confessed before, he needs to bring this kind of general confession. He explained it something like this: when we come to the doctor, we must bring him the whole history of our illness, so that he knows what and how to treat us, and not wander in the dark.

Most often, we don’t even think about it, because we don’t understand how much a priest – indeed, just like a doctor – needs a history of our sinful illness. In addition, it happens that a person, even regularly confessing, due to some cowardice - sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious - either hides some sins, or confesses incompletely or speaks about them indistinctly, trying to name them and not to name them at the same time. During the general confession, this reticence can and must be overcome. In addition, the gracefulness of the experience of general confession is also evidenced by the fact that since ancient times it precedes both monastic tonsure and ordination to the priesthood.

During a general confession, sometimes unexpected turns occur - unexpected both for the priest and for the penitent himself; and this is also worth mentioning. It happens that a Christian who undertakes this work receives some absolutely amazing gift, namely the gift of seeing his life in its entirety, in its entirety. He begins to understand how this life was lived, what was right in it, what was wrong in it. Such a holistic view of one's life leads to equally solid and definite conclusions, and this helps a lot to come to those decisions that can change and correct the situation in the present. General confession in this sense becomes literally a kind of steering wheel, through which you can completely unfold a person's life.

It also happens that a person who came to a general confession and before that asked many questions that led him to a dead end: “why is this not so in my life? why did it happen like that? where is the trouble? where else to attack? ”, suddenly after confession, without asking the priest about anything else, he himself says:“ I understand where this comes from in my life, but from somewhere else. ” And sometimes even he very accurately names the reasons for one or another of his life misadventures. And if a person does not sin in the future by inattention and does not lose the laziness of this spiritual vision, the experience of confession throughout his life allows him to see the connection between his actions and what then happens in his life and in subsequent years. And it helps a lot to live, because torment and bewilderment - why are others good, but I am bad? They take a lot of time and energy from us. And the answer, in a word Saint Ambrose Optinsky, is simple: the tree of the cross that a person carries grows on the soil of his heart. That is why the heart itself must always be very carefully examined, studied, so that later you will not be surprised at what suddenly, it would seem, unexpectedly grew out of it.

How do you usually prepare for a general confession? Naturally, this requires some time: as the holy fathers said, while the water in the vessel is in a state of confusion, the turbidity does not settle. It is necessary to leave this vessel alone, and after some time the water will settle and become transparent, and all the dirt will settle to the bottom, and it will be possible to separate one from the other. This same process should probably take place in preparation for confession for a lifetime: a person needs time to sort himself out. Naturally, even if ordinary confession sometimes requires us to write down a pen and a piece of paper or a notebook in order to write down what we want to repent of, then this is all the more necessary for confession for the whole life we have lived. It's just that you can't keep it in your memory. It is imperative to pray that the Lord would help to remember everything that happened in the life of the evil one, and clothe it in precisely those words in which the sin will be visible and specifically named, and not hidden behind this or that turn of speech. It is really very difficult to look at ourselves impartially from the outside and admit: “I am a sinner,” because in everyday life we present ourselves and others as we want to see ourselves, and not as we really are (we are so we know ourselves that we often do things that are unexpected for ourselves, let alone for those around us). But in order to truly change for the better, you need to open up at a general confession, bare your heart to the very bottom before God, and the courage that a person shows in this spiritual feat of repentance will then no longer leave him, becoming his priceless acquisition and property.

Preparing for a general confession, in my opinion, is the moment when you need to use one of the so-called questionnaires for confession at least once in your life, containing a long list of sins and their manifestations. I would not say that these questionnaires are some kind of pleasant, highly artistic reading. They are often quite primitive. But we are not going to enjoy reading them. This is a kind of plow with which you need to plow your soul and pull out to the surface all that black, dirty and worthless that is in it. These questionnaires should not become our companions throughout our church life: they just have to help us one day, and then they, like crutches, can be put aside. Why are they needed in this case? Because modern man has such a distorted idea of the norms of behavior that until he sees a clear indication of what is sin, he may not even think about it, and if he does, then immediately this unpleasant thought from drive himself away. At the same time, if we took, say, once the book “I Confess a Sin, Father,” in which there are several hundred questions about whether we have committed this or that sin, we do not need to build our confession as a list of answers on all points. It's sad, but I had to deal with cases when a person brought leaflets to confession indicating points: 1, 2, 3 ..., and against each point the words: "yes" or "no." - "What it is?" - you ask and hear: "And I answered the questions from the book ...". Of course, this is a completely wrong attitude towards preparing for confession in a lifetime. These questions play only an auxiliary role, and the confession itself should take place in an arbitrary form. Each person speaks differently about the sin he committed; the most important thing is that everything be said clearly, without concealment, understandable for the priest, so that a feeling of repentance and an unshakable desire not to repeat this sin again is born.

Naturally, the process of preparing for confession for a lifetime is a rather painful process, because usually, confessing once every two or three weeks, we experience a certain spiritual discomfort when we remember those sins that need to be said. And when we have to remember our whole life, we involuntarily have to return with our souls to things that we don’t want to share with anyone and which we not only don’t want to talk about, but don’t even want to remember. These are not necessarily some terrible crimes, these are not necessarily monstrously shameful deeds. But each of us has something to be ashamed of in our lives. And it happens that a person, when he begins to stir up all this and write down for a general confession, comes into a difficult state of mind. At the same time, someone is thrown into the heat, then into the cold, someone is crying, someone is discouraged, someone cannot understand at all what is happening to him. But all this must be passed, and it is important not to drag out the process of preparing for such a confession. It’s good if it fits in a week, no more, because when it takes weeks or months, then, firstly, a person is already getting used to this process and can endlessly supplement and reformulate something, postponing the completion further, and secondly secondly, during this period the enemy is especially active. And if a person begins to hesitate and thinks: “I won’t go today and I won’t go tomorrow either, and next week I have urgent business, so I’ll go in two weeks,” then it’s quite possible that during these two weeks some things will begin to happen to him. then strange things: either the very sins in which he is going to confess will begin to multiply, or troubles will arise at work, or something else will prevent him from going in the end - up to the point that he falls and breaks his leg (I had to deal with this ). So if, as is often said, “something doesn’t let you go” to confession, you need to be aware of who really “doesn’t let you in”, and you need to break out and run as soon as possible, because, then, such is the power " who doesn't let you in" over you.

And further. It must be understood that a person cannot repent of all the sins that he has committed in his life. He cannot repent of every sinful deed, in every sinful episode that was in his life: not a single person will remember all this. And therefore, it is impossible to imagine such a state in which we have collected all the sins, repented of them and became literally completely clean from sin. This cannot be. Therefore, the point is not to list everything as meticulously as possible - sometimes someone understands confession in this way, but to name the most important, most difficult and most shameful in specific vivid manifestations and at the same time set yourself the task of changing, becoming others; this striving, coupled with a correct understanding of where and to what we should go, is the most important thing.

Having properly prepared for a general confession and with due courage about everything that was remembered, having said during the sacrament, a person often feels amazing spiritual freedom - literally, as if some kind of mountain fell off his shoulders. This relief comes from the fact that the soul, which was bound by sins, like some downtrodden, unfortunate being, suddenly straightens up and straightens itself. Surely many of us had to experience this state of contraction, exhaustion of the soul, and the feeling that it was set free. This is what the gospel says that the Lord comes in order to set the tormented free(Luke 4:18) - exhausted, weary of sin.

With this liberation from sin, there are also cases of healings, and one such miraculous case was in my priestly experience. At one time in Moscow, a man came to my temple; he was a Gagauz who lived and worked in Moscow, a baptized person who, according to tradition, refers himself to the Orthodox Church, but in no way showed his faith before. And he came after he lost the ability to speak - inexplicably, suddenly lost the gift of speech. Naturally, this could not but frighten him and lead him to where he guessed the possibility of help. Being still a completely inexperienced priest, I then remembered an example from the life of St. Barsanuphius of Optina. A boy was brought to him who could not speak without being mute from birth. The reverend told his mother that the boy had committed some kind of sin, which he could not confess in confession, and his dumbness was connected with this. Then he said something in the boy's ear - the boy was frightened, recoiled from him, then nodded his head, repented of the very sin that only God, the Monk Barsanuphius, by revelation from the Lord, and the boy himself knew about, and the gift of speech returned to him . Remembering all this, I advised this man to confess for the rest of his life. He diligently prepared for confession, wrote everything down, brought it to the evening service. He could not read it, because he still did not speak, and I read it for him. The next day he came to take communion and, having come to Communion, he was already speaking. In fact, there are many such cases in the life of the Church.

Concluding the conversation about the general confession, it is worth saying that, in addition to the confession for all the lived years, taken once, there should be confessions in our life, for which we prepare in some special way. We understand that there is a certain inertia in our Christian life. Obviously, it is not just some repeated sins and repeated mistakes, but deep-seated passions and skills that we cannot cope with. And sometimes it is necessary - I met this advice for the first time with one of the Greek elders and remembered it - from time to time to make a kind of general review of our entire current life, that is, not just prepare for confession for the period during which we they didn’t start the sacrament of Repentance, but to take the trouble to reconsider my life as a whole: how I live, what happens to me, why I make these mistakes, why I step on the same “rake” that both me and those around me without beat the end. Such a confession also brings clarity to the soul, since it can be deeper and more serious than everyday confession, because again, when we do some things out of inertia, in our usual bustle, it turns on more often and more imperceptibly for us. self-justification mechanism. You know, sometimes it even happens like this: a person comes to confession and starts saying: “I’m a scoundrel, I’m a lazy person, so-and-so,” and you understand that self-justification is also hidden in this, because a person wants to say: I’m a scoundrel, so and so. any, so everything I do is not so scary. Since I am like this, what I do is natural. In a word, self-justification can be hidden behind the most unexpected external screens, and it is necessary to periodically discover it, bring it to light. And regular review of your current life helps a lot with this.

We receive Baptism once in a lifetime and are anointed. Ideally, we get married once. The Sacrament of the Priesthood is not of a comprehensive nature, it is performed only on those whom the Lord has judged to be accepted into the clergy. Our participation in the Sacrament of Unction is very small. But the Sacraments of Confession and Communion lead us through life to eternity, without them the existence of a Christian is inconceivable. We go to them time after time. So sooner or later we still have the opportunity to think: are we preparing for them correctly? And understand: no, most likely not quite. Therefore, the conversation about these Sacraments seems to us very important. In this issue, in a conversation with the editor-in-chief of the magazine, hegumen Nektariy (Morozov), we decided to touch upon (because covering everything is an impossible task, too “borderless” topic) confession, and next time we will talk about Communion of the Holy Mysteries.

“I guess, more precisely, I guess: nine out of ten people who come to confession do not know how to confess…

— Indeed, it is. Even people who regularly go to church do not know how to do many things in it, but the worst thing is with confession. It is very rare for a parishioner to confess correctly. Confession must be learned. Of course, it would be better if an experienced confessor, a person of high spiritual life, spoke about the Sacrament of Confession, about repentance. If I dare to speak about this here, it is simply as a confessing person, on the one hand, and on the other, as a priest who quite often has to receive confession. I will try to summarize my observations of my own soul and how others participate in the Sacrament of Penance. But by no means do I consider my observations sufficient.

Let's talk about the most common misconceptions, misconceptions and mistakes. A person goes to confession for the first time; he heard that before taking communion, one must go to confession. And that in confession one must speak one's sins. The question immediately arises for him: for what period should he “report”? For a lifetime, from childhood? But can you retell it all? Or do you not need to retell everything, but just say: “In childhood and in my youth I showed selfishness many times” or “In my youth I was very proud and vain, and now, in fact, I remain the same”?

- If a person comes to confession for the first time, it is quite obvious that he needs to confess for the whole past life. Starting from the age when he could already distinguish good from evil - and until the moment when he finally decided to confess.

How can you tell your whole life in a short time? At confession, however, we do not tell our whole life, but what is sin. Sins are specific events. However, it is not necessary to recount all the times you have sinned with anger, for example, or lying. It is necessary to say that you committed this sin, and give some of the brightest, most terrible manifestations of this sin - those from which the soul really hurts. There is another pointer: what is the least you want to talk about yourself? This is exactly what needs to be said in the first place. If you are going to confession for the first time, your best bet is to set yourself the task of confessing the heaviest, most painful sins. Then the confession will become more complete, deeper. The first confession cannot be like this for several reasons: it is also a psychological barrier (to come for the first time with a priest, that is, with a witness, to tell God about your sins is not easy) and other obstacles. A person does not always understand what sin is. Unfortunately, not even all people living the church life know and understand the Gospel well. And except in the Gospel, the answer to the question of what is sin and what is virtue is nowhere, perhaps, to be found. In the life around us, many sins have become commonplace... But even when reading the Gospel to a person, his sins are not immediately revealed, they are gradually revealed by the grace of God. Saint Peter of Damascus says that the beginning of the health of the soul is the vision of one's sins as countless as the sand of the sea. If the Lord had immediately revealed to a man his sinfulness in all its horror, not a single person could have endured this. That is why the Lord reveals to man his sins gradually. This can be compared to peeling an onion - first one skin was removed, then the second - and, finally, they got to the bulb itself. That is why it often happens like this: a person goes to church, goes to confession regularly, takes communion, and finally realizes the need for the so-called general confession. It is very rare that a person is ready for it right away.

- What it is? How is a general confession different from a regular one?

— The general confession, as a rule, is called the confession for the entire life lived, and in a certain sense this is true. But confession can be called general and not so comprehensive. We repent of our sins week after week, month after month, this is a simple confession. But from time to time you need to arrange a general confession for yourself - a review of your whole life. Not the one that has been lived, but the one that is now. We see that the same sins are repeated in us, we can’t get rid of them - that’s why we need to understand ourselves. Your whole life, as it is now, to reconsider.

— How to treat the so-called questionnaires for general confession? They can be seen in church shops.

- If by general confession we mean confession for the whole life lived, then there really arises a need for some kind of external assistance. The best manual for confessors is the book by Archimandrite John (Krestyankin) “The Experience of Building a Confession”, it is about the spirit, the correct mood of a penitent person, about what exactly one must repent of. There is a book “Sin and repentance of the last times. On the secret ailments of the soul” by Archimandrite Lazar (Abashidze). Useful excerpts from St. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) - "To help the penitent." As for the questionnaires, yes, there are confessors, there are priests who do not approve of these questionnaires. They say that it is possible to subtract from them such sins that the reader has never heard of, but if he reads it, he will be damaged ... But, unfortunately, there are almost no such sins left about which modern man would not know. Yes, there are stupid, rude questions, there are questions that obviously sin with excessive physiology ... But if you treat the questionnaire as a working tool, like a plow that needs to plow itself all over once, then I think it can be used. In the old days, such questionnaires were called such a wonderful word for the modern ear "renovation". Indeed, with their help, a person renewed himself as the image of God, just as they renovate an old, dilapidated and sooty icon. It is completely unnecessary to think about whether these questionnaires are in good or bad literary form. The serious shortcomings of some questionnaires should be attributed to the following: the compilers include in them something that, in essence, is not a sin. Didn’t you wash your hands with fragrant soap, for example, or didn’t you wash it on Sunday ... If you washed it during the Sunday service, it’s a sin, but if you washed it after the service, because there was no other time, I personally don’t see a sin in this.

“Unfortunately, in our church shops you can sometimes buy such things ...

“That is why it is necessary to consult with the priest before using the questionnaire. I can recommend Priest Alexy Moroz's book "I Confess a Sin, Father" - this is a reasonable and very detailed questionnaire.

- Here it is necessary to clarify: what do we mean by the word "sin"? The majority of confessors, uttering this word, have in mind precisely a sinful act. That is, in fact, a manifestation of sin. For example: “Yesterday I was harsh and cruel with my mother.” But this is not a separate, not a random episode, this is a manifestation of the sin of dislike, intolerance, unforgiveness, selfishness. So, you don’t need to say that, not “yesterday I was cruel”, but simply “I am cruel, there is little love in me.” Or how to speak?

“Sin is a manifestation of passion in action. We must repent of specific sins. Not in passions as such, because passions are always the same, you can write one confession to yourself for the rest of your life, but in those sins that were committed from confession to confession. Confession is the Sacrament that gives us the opportunity to initiate a new life. We repented of our sins, and from that moment our life began anew. This is the miracle that takes place in the Sacrament of Confession. That is why you should always repent - in the past tense. It is not necessary to say: "I offend my neighbors", we must say: "I offended my neighbors." Because I have the intention, having said this, not to offend people in the future.

Each sin in confession should be named so that it is clear what exactly it is. If we repent of idle talk, we do not need to retell all the episodes of our idle talk and repeat all our idle words. But if in some case there was so much idle talk that we bored someone with it or said something completely superfluous - perhaps we should say a little more, more definitely about this in confession. After all, there are such gospel words: For every idle word that people say, they will give an answer on the day of judgment (Matt. 12, 36). It is necessary to look at your confession in advance from this point of view - whether there will be idle talk in it.

- And yet about passions. If I feel irritation at the request of my neighbor, but I do not betray this irritation in any way and provide him with the necessary help, should I repent of the irritation I experienced as a sin?

- If you, feeling this irritation in yourself, consciously struggled with it - this is one situation. If you accepted this irritation of yours, developed it in yourself, reveled in it - this is a different situation. It all depends on the direction of the will of the person. If a person, experiencing a sinful passion, turns to God and says: “Lord, I don’t want this and I don’t want it, help me get rid of it” - there is practically no sin on a person. There is sin, to the extent that our heart has participated in these tempting desires. And how much we allowed him to participate in it.

— Apparently, we should dwell on the “sickness of storytelling”, which stems from a certain cowardice during confession. For example, instead of saying “I acted selfishly,” I begin to say: “At work ... my colleague says ... and I answer back ...”, etc. I end up reporting my sin, but - just like that, in the frame of the story. This is not even a frame, these stories play, if you look at it, the role of clothes - we dress in words, in a plot, so as not to feel naked at confession.

- Indeed, it's easier. But there is no need to make it easy for yourself to confess. Confessions should not contain unnecessary details. There should not be any other people with their actions. Because when we talk about other people, we most often justify ourselves at the expense of these people. We also make excuses due to some of our circumstances. On the other hand, sometimes the measure of the sin depends on the circumstances in which the sin was committed. Beating a person out of drunken rage is one thing, stopping a criminal while protecting a victim is quite another. To refuse to help your neighbor because of laziness and selfishness is one thing, to refuse because the temperature was forty that day is another. If a person who knows how to confess confesses in detail, it is easier for the priest to see what is happening to this person and why. Thus, the circumstances of the commission of a sin should be reported only if the sin you committed is not clear without these circumstances. This, too, is learned by experience.

Excessive narration in confession may also have another reason: a person’s need for participation, for spiritual help and warmth. Here, perhaps, a conversation with a priest is appropriate, but it should be at a different time, by no means at the moment of confession. Confession is a Sacrament, not a conversation.

- Priest Alexander Elchaninov in one of his notes thanks God for helping him every time to experience confession as a catastrophe. What should we do to ensure that our confession, at least, is not dry, cold, formal?

“We must remember that the confession we make in church is the tip of the iceberg. If this confession is everything, and everything is limited to it, we can say that we have nothing. There was no real confession. There is only the grace of God, which, despite our unreason and recklessness, still acts. We have the intention to repent, but it is formal, it is dry and lifeless. It is like that fig tree, which, if it bears any fruit, then with great difficulty.

Our confession is made at another time and prepared at another time. When we, knowing that tomorrow we will go to the temple, we will confess, we sit down and sort out our lives. When I think: why did I condemn people so many times during this time? But because, judging them, I myself look better in my own eyes. I, instead of dealing with my own sins, condemn others and justify myself. Or I find some pleasure in condemnation. When I realize that as long as I judge others, I will not have the grace of God. And when I say: “Lord, help me, otherwise how much will I kill my soul with this?”. After that, I will come to confession and say: "I condemned people without number, I exalted myself over them, I found sweetness in this for myself." My repentance lies not only in the fact that I said it, but in the fact that I decided not to do it again. When a person repents in this way, he receives very great grace-filled consolation from confession and confesses in a completely different way. Repentance is a change in a person. If there was no change, confession remained to a certain extent a formality. “Fulfillment of Christian duty,” as for some reason it was customary to express it before the revolution.

There are examples of saints who brought repentance to God in their hearts, changed their lives, and the Lord accepted this repentance, although there was no stole over them, and the prayer for the forgiveness of sins was not read. But there was repentance! But with us it’s different - and the prayer is read, and the person takes communion, but repentance as such did not happen, there is no break in the chain of sinful life.

There are people who come to confession and, having already stood in front of the lectern with the cross and the Gospel, begin to remember what they have sinned. This is always a real torment - both for the priest, and for those who are waiting for their turn, and for the person himself, of course. How to prepare for confession? First, an attentive sober life. Secondly, there is a good rule, which you can’t think of anything to replace: every evening, spend five to ten minutes not even thinking about what happened during the day, but repenting before God for what a person considers himself to have sinned. Sit down and mentally go through the day - from the morning hours to the evening. And acknowledge every sin for yourself. Whether a sin is great or small, it must be understood, felt, and, as Anthony the Great says, placed between oneself and God. See it as an obstacle between yourself and the Creator. Feel this terrible metaphysical essence of sin. And for every sin, ask God for forgiveness. And put in your heart the desire to leave these sins in the past day. It is advisable to write down these sins in some kind of notebook. This helps put a limit on sin. We did not write down this sin, we did not perform such a purely mechanical action, and it “passed over” to the next day. Yes, and then it will be easier to prepare for confession. You don't have to "suddenly" remember everything.

- Some parishioners prefer confession in this form: "I have sinned against such and such a commandment." It's convenient: "I sinned against the seventh" - and nothing more needs to be said.

“I think this is completely unacceptable. Any formalization of spiritual life kills this life. Sin is pain human soul. If there is no pain, then there is no repentance. St. John of the Ladder says that the pain that we feel when we repent of them testifies to the forgiveness of our sins. If we do not experience pain, we have every reason to doubt that our sins are forgiven. And the Monk Barsanuphius the Great, answering the questions of various people, repeatedly said that a sign of forgiveness is the loss of sympathy for previously committed sins. This is the change that must happen to a person, an inner turn.

- Another common opinion: why should I repent if I know that I will not change anyway - this will be hypocrisy and hypocrisy on my part.

“What is impossible with men is possible with God.” What is sin, why does a person repeat it again and again, even realizing that it is bad? Because this is what prevailed over him, what entered his nature, broke it, distorted it. And the person himself cannot cope with this, he needs help - the grace-filled help of God. Through the Sacrament of Repentance, a person resorts to His help. The first time a person comes to confession and sometimes he is not even going to leave his sins, but let him at least repent of them before God. What do we ask God for in one of the prayers of the Sacrament of Repentance? "Relax, leave, forgive." First weaken the power of sin, then leave it, and only then forgive. It happens that a person comes to confession many times and repents of the same sin, not having the strength, not having the determination to leave it, but repents sincerely. And the Lord sends His help to man for this repentance, for this constancy. There is such a wonderful example, in my opinion, from St. Amphilochius of Iconium: a certain person came to the temple and there knelt before the icon of the Savior and tearfully repented of the terrible sin that he committed again and again. His soul suffered so much that he once said: “Lord, I am tired of this sin, I will never commit it again, I call You Yourself as a witness at the Last Judgment: this sin will no longer be in my life.” After that, he left the temple and again fell into this sin. And what did he do? No, he did not strangle himself and did not drown himself. He came to the temple again, knelt down and repented of his fall. And so, near the icon, he died. And the fate of this soul was revealed to the saint. The Lord had mercy on the repentant. And the devil asks the Lord: “How is it, didn’t he promise You many times, didn’t he call You Himself as a witness and then deceive?” And God answers: “If you, being a misanthrope, so many times after his appeals to Me, took him back to you, how can I not accept him?”

And here is a situation known to me personally: a girl regularly came to one of the Moscow churches and confessed that she earns her living by the oldest, as they say, profession. No one allowed her to take Communion, of course, but she continued to walk, pray, and try to somehow participate in the life of the parish. I don’t know if she managed to leave this craft, but I know for sure that the Lord keeps her and does not leave her, waiting for the necessary change.

It is very important to believe in the forgiveness of sins, in the power of the Sacrament. Those who do not believe complain that after confession there is no relief, that they leave the temple with a heavy soul. This is from lack of faith, even from disbelief in forgiveness. Faith should give a person joy, and if there is no faith, there is no need to rely on any emotional experiences and emotions.

“Sometimes it happens that some long-standing (as a rule) act of ours evokes in us a reaction that is more humorous than repentant, and it seems to us that talking about this act in confession is excessive zeal, bordering on hypocrisy or coquetry. Example: I suddenly remember that once in my youth I stole a book from the library of a rest home. I think that it is necessary to say this in confession: whatever one may say, the eighth commandment has been violated. And then it becomes funny...

“I wouldn't take it so lightly. There are actions that cannot even be formally performed, because they destroy us - not even as people of faith, but simply as people of conscience. There are certain barriers that we must set for ourselves. These saints could have spiritual freedom, which allows them to do things that are formally condemned, but they did them only when these actions were for the good.

- Is it true that you do not need to repent of sins committed before Baptism, if you were baptized in adulthood?

— Formally true. But here's the thing: earlier, the Sacrament of Baptism was always preceded by the Sacrament of Penance. The baptism of John, the entry into the waters of the Jordan was preceded by the confession of sins. Now adults in our churches are baptized without confession of sins, only in some churches there is a practice of pre-baptismal confession. And what's going on? Yes, in baptism a person's sins are forgiven, but he did not realize these sins, did not experience repentance for them. That is why he usually returns to these sins. The break did not happen, the line of sin continues. Formally, a person is not obliged to talk about sins committed before baptism at confession, but ... it’s better not to delve into such calculations: “I must say this, but I can not say this.” Confession is not the subject of such bargaining with God. It's not about the letter, it's about the spirit.

We have talked quite a lot here about how to prepare for confession, but what should we read or, as they say, read at home the day before, what kind of prayers? In the prayer book there is a Follow-up to Holy Communion. Do I need to read it in its entirety and is it enough? In addition, after all, Communion may not follow confession. What to read before confession?

- It is very good if a person reads before confession penitential canon Savior. There is also a very good Penitential Canon of the Mother of God. It can be just a prayer with a repentant feeling, "God, be merciful to me a sinner." And it is very important, remembering every sin committed, bringing to the heart the consciousness of its fatality for us, from the heart, in your own words to ask for forgiveness from God for him, simply standing in front of the icons or making bows. Come to what St. Nikodim the Holy Mountaineer calls the feeling of being “guilty.” That is, to feel: I am dying, and I am aware of it, and do not justify myself. I recognize myself as worthy of this death. But with this I go to God, bow before His love and hope for His mercy, believing in it.

Abbot Nikon (Vorobiev) has a wonderful letter to a certain woman, no longer young, who, due to age and illness, had to prepare for the transition to Eternity. He writes to her: “Remember all your sins and in each one - even the one you confessed - repent before God until you feel that the Lord forgives you. It is not a charm to feel that the Lord forgives, this is what the holy fathers called joyful weeping - repentance that brings joy. This is the most necessary thing - to feel peace with God.

Interviewed by Marina Biryukova

General confession how to prepare for it. Orthodox! we all need to go through a "general" confession. (added, download confession sheets)