A person becomes ill during a service - why is this?

Usually, everyone who has not yet fully repented and made a general confession has a bad time in church. The grace of God acts, but the soul is dirty and cannot accommodate it, and so the person becomes ill. This happens especially often during weddings. The temple is free, bright, the air is clean; the wedding begins; the woman feels ill, she loses consciousness, falls... For those who sincerely repent of all their sins and begin to pray, the grace of God helps them to grow spiritually; such a person feels good in the temple. Hearing church singing and reading, he plunges into the ocean of Love. And Divine Love is such that a person drowns in it, forgetting about where he is - in Heaven or on earth. And the long service (and on Mount Athos it lasts 14-15 hours) flies by for him in an instant, unnoticed. He just entered the temple, woke up from prayer - and the service was over! But this is only true for those who are constantly in prayer, who prepare themselves for prayer in the morning. He comes to the temple, and his inner prayer is picked up by a weak...

How much detail should you talk about your sins in confession?

When you and I sin, sins can enter us through our thoughts, tongue, eyes, ears and body. We can sin before God, before our neighbors, against ourselves and against nature. Let's say thoughts go. If we go outside and the wind is blowing, then we won’t stop that wind with a raincoat. It’s the same with thoughts: they go, but you need to be able to control your thoughts. When our soul is completely distorted by sin, then sinful thoughts swarm in our heads. We think evil about our neighbor, we even blaspheme God and the saints. If we resist these thoughts, fight them - remember, sin does not fall on the soul! They force themselves on us, but we don’t want to! We will be rewarded for this struggle. And if we are stuck in our thoughts like a swamp, enjoying this dirt, then we must already repent of this. This is the filth of our soul. How to repent? Simply: “Father, I have blasphemous thoughts against God.” Everything is clear and enough has been said. “Father, I have poor thoughts” - that’s enough. Passions can also disturb you from lustful thoughts - tell us about that too...

A man comes and says? “Behold, I have sinned—I have committed fornication.” There is no need to tell the priest in detail how he enjoyed this passion, but he must say, if there was perversion, with how many people it happened. Let’s say a person swore, I should say: “I swore,” “I got drunk,” “I played cards,” “I fought.” There are many sins, and if you talk about them in detail, then the priest will only have enough time to listen to you alone.

I am an elderly man, my memory is weak, I cannot remember all my sins. How can I repent?

Then one day a woman came, she was already over 80 years old. She has never confessed, she doesn’t feel her sins, she doesn’t see her, i.e. the soul became dead. I told her with love, for edification: “Why don’t you honor your sins? Because your body is a coffin, and your soul is a dead man in a coffin. You are a walking corpse!” And she didn’t know what to answer. And she had so many sins! I began to help her confess, I said:

Can't you do it yourself?

I can not.

Ask?

All your life you didn’t go to church, didn’t pray to God...

I didn't pray...

You didn't keep your fasts.

Didn't comply...

She lived unmarried and dated others.

It was a sinner.

Abortion? Didn't you repent?

Well, and a lot of other sins.

I don't remember anymore.

Well, since this is an old man, I ask:

Didn’t she destroy churches? Didn't you close it?

There was such a thing. In Ivanovo, people walked around our apartments with lists: “Do we need a church or not?” I wrote: “We don’t need a temple.” And she told everyone: “Write like this.” And now I’m old, I need to repent. I didn’t want to bother the priest by calling him home, I thought I’d go and repent myself.

Your entire life has been spent serving Satan.

How can I save myself now?

While you still have time, you breathe and your heart beats. But the time will come, and there will be his last blow. Personally, you need to be in church every morning and evening.

The Lord does not reject such people either. Although at the eleventh hour, He accepts them.

Do I need to repent of a sin in confession if I know it will happen again?

We must repent. When a person comes to confession and repents before the Lord, then at that time the Lord gives grace-filled strength to fight sin, and after confession this sin may not be repeated. I know a man who was a heavy drinker for 15 years. His wife didn’t remember him being sober; this happened to him very rarely. He drank constantly. And he somehow repented, then again... He repented ten times, in confession he said: “Here, father, I drink - that’s all. I drink - and that’s all.” But his wife prayed earnestly for him; I gave it to monasteries, to churches everywhere... But his faith is still weak... He comes: “Father, I sinned again. I drank.” And suddenly at one time he stopped. For the second year I haven’t taken a single ounce - a complete aversion to wine. And no need to code! The grace of God helped him. The Lord protects him. I ask: “What do those with whom I drank say?!” “And they are perplexed why I quit so abruptly, I always drank with them, but then I stopped drinking. They invite me, and I tell them that my entire limit is over. I’ve already drunk everything in 15 years.”

Why do I sometimes not feel at ease after confession?

Little preparation was done. Before confession, you need to feel your sins and condemn yourself.

Is it possible to receive communion after general confession? There is no private confession in our church; the Lord sees our intention to repent in detail, but there is no such opportunity.

You need to find a confessor so that you can confess to him thoroughly, throughout your life. General Confession in Orthodox Church no, it never was and never will be. And the fact that now in some churches there is no real confession is due to the decline of the human spirit. Many “Orthodox” people are so accustomed to general confession, so saturated with sin to the last cell, that they don’t even know what to repent of. They go, for example, to communion, but before that they can have a row at home, throw an iron at their husband, and they don’t feel the sin behind them, they don’t confess it. Everything seems to be fine. We have become so accustomed to a sinful life that it has become a habit; the soul has become dead and insensitive. The same soul that is constantly cleansed by confession immediately feels even a small sin... I think not a single priest will refuse to listen to you separately. We must wait for the last person, when he leaves the priest, come up and say: “Father, I have a sin... I condemned the person, caused a scandal, argued, babbled, was offended, grumbled, was proud, boasted; I ate, drank, slept a lot; I prayed. bad, I didn’t always go to church...” To put it briefly and concisely, the priest will always listen.

The dying old woman was 89 years old and paralyzed. A week before her death, she began to baptize herself and the walls while lying down. She couldn't speak. It was strange to see.

When death comes to a person, he feels how the soul begins to separate. I've met a lot of people like that. One of my relatives lay there and said: “What a miracle! Just now I was in the Moscow region, I was at the house, I saw all my relatives.” And he himself lay and died in Siberia. That is, the Lord finally showed him such mercy - he allowed him to say goodbye to those places and see everyone. The next day he died.

In the end, unclean spirits come after the sinful soul. They know that the soul must leave, they guard it. Maybe that’s why the grandmother baptized herself and the walls - so that the evil spirits would go away.

There was such an archimandrite in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Fr. Tikhon (Agrikov). This was a real intelligent shepherd. He taught pastoral doctrine. Great benefit came to those students who listened to his lectures. One day he was called to see a dying woman in Sergiev Posad. He arrived, entered the apartment and saw many people. The chairman of the city executive committee died, being a party member. At this time, when people gathered around her, Fr. Tikhon. He went to her, she confessed and repented. And then he speaks, taking his hand. "I won't let you go!" - "What's the matter?" - “Now, a lot of black men have gathered, scary ones, and they say: “You are ours!” We'll take you away!" They've been tormenting me for a whole day. And when you came in, they all ran away. Now, with you, I'm not afraid. They're all gone. Don't leave me." The priest entered - the demons all disappeared...

How to properly accompany a person on his final journey?

Imagine: a person was invited to a wedding feast, where people close to him will gather. Before going there, a person must prepare himself: wash the body, put on the best clothes, stock up on gifts, and most importantly, come to the meeting in a good mood, with a joyful face. And since we live here temporarily, our whole earthly life is only a preparation for eternity, we must prepare ourselves in such a way that it would not be shameful to appear in the assembly of saints. Some devout Christians prepare themselves from a young age, hourly, because we don't know when the Lord will call us. Today we will not talk about a sudden death, we will talk about the expected death, about those people who are already gray with gray hair, who are lying in a hospital bed. How can I help them? What good can their loved ones do for them?

The funeral service and burial are not the most important thing. The main thing is with what soul a person will go into eternity, therefore an elderly, sick person must make a general confession. As far as memory allows, tell all the sins of my youth. Then you need to receive unction (not only the dying, but also the sick are gathered for healing, because in the Sacrament of Unction a person is forgiven all his forgotten sins). After confession and unction, it is necessary to receive communion - to take into oneself the Body and Blood of Christ. When the hour of death comes for your loved one, you must invite a priest to read the canon for the separation of the soul from the body; if there is no priest, believing relatives must read it themselves (it is in the prayer book). It is necessary for the dying person to have time to reconcile with all his relatives, try to help him with this. It is very useful for every Christian to be ill for 2-3 years, suffer and dry out before death. If a person does not grumble when sick, his soul will be cleansed and it will be easier for it to go out into the next world. When a person dies, if he was an Orthodox Christian, i.e. he praised God correctly (he constantly went to church, confessed, took communion), he should be brought to the church in the evening, on the eve of the burial, agreed in advance with the priest, and on the very day of the burial, he should be buried. A huge help for the deceased is the prayer of the Church for his repose, magpie, i.e. forty days commemoration Divine Liturgy. It’s good to order sorokoust in several churches and monasteries. Panikhida, almsgiving, reading the psalter for the deceased will also bring invaluable benefit to his soul. The deceased can no longer pray for themselves, they are looking forward to the prayers of their relatives and loved ones. We are talking about church people, but what if a person rarely went to church? In such people, the eye of conscience is closed, faith in the soul is darkened, the mind is darkened, and the person ceases to feel his sins, it seems to him that he is good: he did not kill anyone, did not rob ... Such a person needs help. According to the apostolic rules, anyone who has not been to church for 3 Sundays in a row. He is cast out of the Church by the Holy Spirit and is in darkness, in the power of the devil. Those who do not observe fasts, Wednesdays, Fridays, live unmarried, had abortions, did not pray to God ... a great many committed sins, but they do not feel them. If you put a black spot on black material, it will be invisible. So it is in the spiritual world: when the soul is completely saturated with sins, each new sin is no longer evident, and the person believes that everything is fine with him. And only when he begins to live spiritually, he discovers many sins in himself. And the Lord said: in whatever I find you, I will judge you (Matt. 24:42). The Lord will forgive us all our sins, but will not forgive one thing - if we do not repent. Therefore, if you have the strength, you need to come to the priest (the cross and the Gospel are visible signs of the invisible presence of God) and repent. And we do not repent to the priest - he is only an intermediary between God and our conscience, we repent to God himself. And if we sincerely repented of everything, did not hide a single sin, then the Lord through the priest forgives us all sins, a person is reconciled with God, gains grace-filled strength to fight sin. This has been the case at all times of the Church of Christ.

Rus' is going through difficult times right now. It seems that the people of our long-suffering Russia must repent. It would be good for everyone to kneel together and ask God for mercy.

To do this, it is necessary that the hierarchs be able to address the people on television or radio, so that at a certain time everyone will kneel and repent.

But there is one difficulty: a huge mass of people do not know what to repent of. This is the worst thing.

Today I confessed to an elderly woman. I ask:

Well, tell me, what are your sins?

But I don’t have any special sins!

How many times do you go to church?

Well, two or three times a year.

And if a student goes to school two or three times a year, ten years pass with an ABC book, and he still won’t learn anything. So you don’t see your sins. Look, are there people in the temple?

Yes, there are a lot of people. He took it and covered her eyes with his hand:

Do you see them now?

No, I don't see it.

And you covered my eyes with your hands.

But are there people in the temple?

Yes, I just don't see it.

In the same way, you don’t see or feel your sins, because your spiritual eyes are closed.

Many have become dead in soul. From what? From constant vices and passions. We don’t go to church, we don’t pray to God. We are mired in sins and do not feel them in our hearts.

The Holy Fathers say that a person begins to live spiritually only when his spiritual eyes are opened. He sees a lot of sins in his soul. This is the beginning of repentance.

People need to be prepared for repentance. They must know what sins to repent of. In parishes, priests must explain the meaning of confession. For example, they called on people to repent of the regicide. Now a new generation is coming. People who were recently born did not kill the king. Father Artemy Vladimirov says that “we are not guilty of these sins, but those who killed or agreed with the murder must repent. Internally, they agreed with the murder, that is, it was as if they were killing themselves.” This is what they need to repent of.

Every Christian, if he has not yet truly repented, needs to remember, as far as his memory allows, all the sins from his youth, from the day of baptism, write them down briefly in memory, come to the confessor in church and tell about his sins there. Especially in monasteries, people can truly open their souls to a priest, because it is not just one priest who confesses, but several. And at the parish, the priest must serve the service, confess, and fulfill demands. You need to choose a priest you like, come up and confess. This will be of great benefit to everyone’s soul, and therefore to all of Russia.

What should I do: I confess often, but my sins accumulate up to sixty. During confession, if I write down a sin in detail, a feeling of shame arises in me, and it helps me fight the sin. And if I write it down in one word, then it’s as if I’m shading my sin, hiding it. And now I am in doubt: what if these sins are not forgiven by God?

If you are in doubt, you must remember all your sins, write them down and reveal them to the priest.

In the book of Saints Barsanuphius and John about confession it is said this way: during the day we often sin - in thoughts, deeds or words. As soon as you have sinned, you need to immediately cry out to the Lord: “Lord, forgive us, we have sinned! We judged you, we slept too much, we said the wrong thing.” And the Lord, by the Holy Spirit, forgives us these everyday sins.

Millions of thoughts fly by in a day, but if we consider all of them a sin and don’t fight them ourselves, don’t overcome them with good thoughts, and read everything to the priest, we will exhaust the priest to nothing. We must learn not to accept thoughts. After all, it is the demon who puts them in our heads, these are not our bad thoughts. Sin is born in our hearts when we accept these thoughts, listen to them, and violate our good feelings towards our neighbor with hostility, anger, and irritation. For no reason, no reason at all, we will answer him sharply and be rude. Evil enters our hearts. Why? Because they didn’t differentiate the thought from their own thought in time. This skill comes with experience, when we ourselves get tired of our sins. Then we will control ourselves constantly. There will be the same number of temptations, but many fewer sins than sixty...

For confession, you need to prepare your sins this way: remember, summarize all similar ones (you were angry twice, say in confession “I was angry with your neighbor”), and write them down briefly. Say to the priest, for example, like this:

Father, this week I sinned: I was indignant, argued, deceived, ate too much, slept too much, prayed absentmindedly, received thoughts and through them violated my spiritual peace, desecrated my soul with unclean memories, stood unheeded in church...

This is enough for the Lord to forgive us our sins. If you live in the eyes of God, walk before God and remember Him constantly, then you know that the Lord sees your repentance, your struggle with sin, your desire for cleansing. And in confession it is enough to testify that “it is for this and this sin that I repent.” God forgives sins through the Holy Spirit. It is important not just to list sins, it is important to correct yourself, to get rid of sins. Otherwise, during confession, some people list every time: “I was indignant, I burst out...”, but they walk away from confession, again doing their own thing.

Fighting with thoughts is a more monastic activity. Previously, the elder had two or three novices, they came to him and revealed their thoughts. And without the elder’s blessing, without his knowledge, the novices did nothing. Even if the thought seemed virtuous to them, they revealed it to the elder, and the elder knew how to recognize the machinations of evil spirits and the sin to which they wanted to persuade the novice did not happen. Then the novices themselves quickly learned to recognize thoughts and got rid of a lot of sinful habits.

As happens with us: at first we didn’t even seem to pay attention to this or that thought, we forgot it. But the demon, having invested it in us, retreats, does not bother us, and hides. Later we remember the thought and, accepting it as our own, begin to think about it. And there our thoughts were already distracted from prayer, and we did not pronounce the name of God, and bad feelings were born in the heart, and irritation... The thought, like a seed, sprouted in our heart and bore its fruit - sin. We reveal our thoughts in confession - it’s like scaring away a snake hiding there from under a stone: they lifted the stone, and it disappeared.

I advise you to repent before God of accepting your thoughts, and in confession to name those sins that were born into the world by these thoughts. If you managed to overcome the thought, did not become irritated, did not condemn, but found the right thought to justify your neighbor, then you have defeated the demon. And swearing is not a sin. For your battle, a reward awaits you from God. On earth this reward is the grace of God, and in the other world - eternal life, eternal joy.

If the priest inquires about a specific sin, he can explain it in more detail.

How I want to repent and not repeat some sin again. Can this be learned?

Repentance depends on a sincere desire to get rid of sin. Repentance begins when a person realizes that he was lost, that he lived on earth in sin. When a person repents, he makes a promise to no longer live lawlessly. He repented and turned his life entirely to God. It is impossible to serve two masters: you cannot promise God to improve and at the same time dissemble before Him: “I’ll improve a little more... then, later.”

At confession, through the priest, the Lord visibly forgives sins and at this moment gives grace-filled strength to fight passions. A person rises up and takes wings. The main miracle is that during repentance the Lord resurrects the soul, a person is born spiritually. Therefore, repentance is like a second baptism.

Having prepared myself, I go to confession, but I begin to feel embarrassed and rush: “Oh, there are still people behind me!” What should I do?

Prepare a general confession from childhood, but do not describe your sins in detail. Everything can be said briefly and concisely.

In the Pochaev Lavra one had to confess one hundred and more people in a day. And then we had to develop a rule: accept a condensed, specific confession. This is in order to forgive someone else’s sins, to guide someone else on the path of salvation.

If a person does not know what sins to name, but has come to sincerely repent before God, then you help him. You name your sins, everything is clear to him, he clearly answers whether it happened or didn’t happen. You give a person a push, and then God Himself helps him remember the sins he committed from childhood. It seems to us that everything has already been forgotten, that we did something wrong in childhood. But our conscience, coming to life at the first confession, suggests more and more new offenses, new sins. Shame is choking, tears are rolling from the eyes, but I want to be cleansed in the eyes of God... This is true repentance, real confession. After such a confession, a person physically feels that his soul has become lighter, and then the person begins to write down new current sins on a piece of paper and prepare for confession. He first controls, takes into account the sins committed, and then tries to avoid them. He would have committed this or that sin before, but now he remembers: “I’ll have to say it in confession. So, maybe I shouldn’t do it? After all, it’s a shame - I’ve already repented of it.” And he does not commit a sin. This is already the beginning of spiritual warfare with evil spirits. This is the beginning of the journey for the Lord.

Spiritual life should proceed under the guidance of an experienced confessor. In parishes where there is only one priest, but there are many people and needs, this is difficult. But if you want to improve, to become a soldier of Christ (even if you remain to live in the world), then find a confessor in a monastery. There are many priests there and they will devote more time to you.

She wrote all her sins on paper, gave it to the priest, and without reading, he tore it up: “God knows your sins.” Has my confession been completed?

If your confession was neither read nor heard, it means that those sins remained with you. Confession as a sacrament did not take place, even though that priest read a prayer of permission over you, but he did not know what he was allowing you to do, what he was forgiving. Maybe you wrote there that you killed a hundred people, shot up a bus, but he doesn’t even know that. Maybe they planted dynamite under the bridge and committed sabotage, killing people, and he doesn’t know that. It is necessary that each time your confession be read or heard, and only after that a prayer of permission is read over your head. Then a person’s sins are forgiven by God.

Especially now, many people come to confession who were in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Dagestan. Those released from prison come, and on their conscience are robberies, murders, and violence. Professional thieves, killers, snipers, those who committed contract killings and sabotage come. Their conscience torments them and does not allow them to live in peace. Such a “patient” will come to a novice “doctor”, show the festering wounds, and he will say: “Nothing, everything is fine.” And an experienced “doctor” will open the wounds, clean out the pus, bandage them, prescribe medicine...

Find a confessor to whom you can truly repent, and cleanse your soul.

A person in confession constantly repents of the same sins. He hates sins, fights and still repeats them. What else can you do to defeat them?

The most important thing is for a person to hate sin. This is the very center! If we do not love sin, then we will quickly get rid of it.

The Lord blessed us with many gifts, for example, he gave us the gift of anger. Do you hear? Gift! So that we are angry against the devil, against evil spirits, so that we stand strong in their attacks. But we have perverted this gift: we sin, we become angry against our neighbor. We have been given the gift of zeal for God. But we are not jealous of holiness, but of our neighbor. This is a sin. We have been given greed as a gift of thirst for God, for everything holy, and we are greedy for earthly delights. We need to correct ourselves and, most importantly, hate sin.

And this requires determination. In his youth, Blessed Augustine could not get rid of one sin, and only when he became a mature spiritual man did he understand why sin did not leave him. He lacked determination, a sincere desire to free himself: “I prayed, asked to be delivered from sin, but in the depths of my soul I seemed to say: “Deliver me, Lord, from sin, but not now, later. Now I’m young, I want to live.” I didn’t say these words out loud, but somewhere in my mind this thought was there.”

Apparently I need to confess since childhood. I feel the need for this. I approach the church and cannot enter. And if I go to confession, I can’t completely cleanse my soul.

One man told how he could not repent of one mortal sin. He came to the temple, saw a priest on the choir, and it seemed to him that that priest was looking at him all the time. I just couldn’t get myself ready for confession. And this was a demonic suggestion to prevent the soul from being cleansed of sins. We must set ourselves up so that we go to church to God, and not to the priest, and that we repent before God.

There are more priests in monasteries; several people go to confession at once. We must try and choose one who could listen to all our sins. For your memory, mark on a piece of paper the sins that you remember from your youth, the most shameful, disgusting ones, they are usually well remembered.

Remember: the day of the Last Judgment will come, when our unrepentant sins will be revealed to the whole world, to all angels, saints and people. This is where there will be horror, shame and disgrace! This is where the shame will be! We will fall into the abyss, we will cry tears of blood, tear out the hair on our heads, but we will never return to earth in this life, we will not be able to repent and bear the worthy fruits of repentance.

When a person goes to confession, the devil instills fear in him and creates all sorts of obstacles. Don't be afraid! Know that if we sincerely repent, your confessor will have more respect and love for you. I say this from my own experience. Sometimes I think: “Why am I standing in confession if no one says anything?” And when a person comes and sincerely repents, then he and I have joy. At least one person is alive!

The Holy Scripture says this: “All heaven rejoices and rejoices over one repentant sinner.”

How to repent of the sins of Sodom?

Take the breviary for the clergy. There are questions that the confessor should ask during confession: are you married? did you get married? how many men were there? what nations? were there any close relatives? which ones and how many were there?

When the human soul leaves the body, it goes through ordeals, there are twenty of them in total. The most terrible ones are the 16th - fornication, the 17th - adultery, the 18th - sodomy sins. Only a few pass through these ordeals successfully.

In Palestine there were five nearby cities in which prodigal unnatural sins flourished. Two cities were especially famous for their vices - Sodom and Gomorrah. Their inhabitants fell so low that they knew no prohibitions and barriers to satisfying their passions. Then brimstone fire came down from Heaven, and the cities were destroyed. Now they all lie at the bottom of the Dead Sea.

On the shores of this sea grows an interesting tree - the Sodom apple tree. Its fruits are beautiful; when you bite into it, there is sweetness on your lips. And then such bitterness! There's no way you'll spit it out. It was the Lord who left a reminder of death from “sweet” sins. The sins of Sodom give temporary sweetness, but bitterness soon comes, and in hellish torments you will not get rid of it.

It is easy to fall into these sins. The most important person at these ordeals is the devil Asmodeus. He is the chief of prodigal demons. There are a great many of them, and at the ordeals they show all the sins committed by people. They boast that rarely does anyone guilty of these sins bring repentance. Few people go through these ordeals, because they are ashamed to admit to them.

And the one who repented of these sins must endure some sorrows and illnesses for them. Don’t grumble when someone scolds you, but thank God for everything. This is the only way the soul can be cleansed.

My conscience is silent, it does not convict me of sins or passions. I go to church, repent, confess, take communion, but I feel that everything is not as it should be. What should I do?

The most important thing to do is to make a general confession. Remember everything, as far as your memory allows, so that nothing remains on your conscience.

If a person constantly controls all his words, actions and thoughts, he will quickly become purified. And the voice of conscience will loudly proclaim to him if he wants to do something not according to God. When a person is unrepentant of sins, he tramples on his conscience. You are on the right path - you live a church life: you confess, repent, take communion, pray to God, go to services. The main thing is that you want improvements and corrections. Another, who has drowned out the voice of conscience within himself, behaves differently: “So what if I drink a glass of milk or eat a piece of sausage during Lent?” It starts small. The Lord says: “You have been faithful over a few things, but I will make you ruler over many” (Matthew 25:20-22). And if you are not faithful to God in small things, then small sin will give birth to big sin.

You need to find a priest who can listen to you when you come with a general confession. There are few priests in the parishes - one, two. And in monasteries there are more of them, and they also have more time to listen to parishioners. They have confession - special obedience. And perhaps even, you will find yourself a confessor to guide you on the path of spiritual salvation. He will talk with you, help you discover hidden passions within yourself. And you just need to learn not to hide anything. Sin is not gold to be buried. It must be quickly discovered and removed from the soul. And then the voice of conscience will be heard in any temptation.

Read the lives of the saints, your soul will be contrite when you compare your life with their exploits. You will see how holy they lived and how uncleanly we live. Blame yourself and not someone else for all temptations; consider yourself indebted to God. When a person thinks that he is on the right path, that he is being saved, that he is praying pure prayer, this is bad. Until death we must consider ourselves unfit for anything, as the Apostle Paul said, “unable to be slaves.” Even if we did good deeds from morning to evening, even then we cannot be sure of our salvation. The Lord alone knows this.

I am ashamed to utter some of my sins before the priest. I can only cry out daily: “Lord, forgive me, the accursed one.” Will He take away from me those sins that I name before Him?

Of course, we must constantly repent before God and ask for forgiveness. But we don’t know whether He has forgiven us or not. The Lord left us the clergy on earth, gave the first Church - His disciples-apostles - the power to forgive and bind sins. The sacrament of confession comes from the apostles.

On the Day of the Last Judgment, the Lord will forgive us all sins, except unrepentant ones. You need to cast aside shame and confess your sins to the priest. Our bad deeds are burned with shame. We should be ashamed to sin, but not ashamed to repent. If you are sick and cannot go to church, invite the priest home. We do not know when our hour of death will come; we must be ready to meet it at every minute. We must repent boldly. Here we name our sins only in the presence of a priest - one person. And at the Last Judgment, the unrepentant sins of which we are ashamed will be heard before all the saints, before the Angels. The whole world will recognize them. That’s why the devil tells us to be ashamed of them, so that we don’t repent. While the blood is still flowing in the body, while the heart is beating, while the mercy of the Lord remains with us, we must confess unrepentant sins.

Why are we embarrassed to name a shameful sin? Our pride and pride get in the way: “What will Father think of us?” Yes, the priest has a stream of people with the same sins every day! And he will think: “Here is another lost sheep of Christ who has returned to God’s flock.”

When a person freely speaks of his sins, does not make amends for them, laments, cries, the priest experiences great respect for the repentant. He appreciates the sincerity of the penitent.

Sins do not need to be stored in the soul, as in a piggy bank. Who needs them? When repentance is real, it is easy for both the person and the priest. And “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:7). If we came to the doctor's office, said minor minor illnesses, and hid the most life-threatening wound, we can die; spiritual wounds are no less dangerous for our spiritual life, our soul, and the soul is more precious than the body.

If we previously concealed shameful sins, deliberately hushed up, then all our previous confessions are considered invalid, the sacrament was not performed. All sins, named and unnamed, remained in the soul, and even more serious sin was added - concealing sins in confession. This is stated in the breviary: “Behold, child, Christ stands invisibly, accepting your confession; if you conceal any sin, you will have a grave sin.” You can deceive a priest, but you cannot deceive God. And if after such “confessions” you also take communion, then communion will be a condemnation. There will be special punishment for this at the Last Judgment.

What is idle talk?

Spring has arrived, summer will soon be warm. Many people like to go out to a bench in front of the entrance or go to a neighbor’s house. They came, sat down, but there was nothing to talk about if the soul was not filled with prayer and concern for the good of one’s neighbor. And idle talk begins, just to kill time quickly. And time is so precious! We are given a little of it to save our souls. And so the grandmothers sit, watching everyone who passes by with their eyes. Everyone knows: who has been married how many times, how many abortions they have had, who is engaged in what kind of business. And why should this “knowledge” go to waste? They share with each other. And this is called idle talk, condemnation, slander, gossip.

Anecdotes are also idle talk, idle talk, ridiculousness, because they do not bring any benefit. Empty laughter without spiritual joy, laughter and carelessness occur when there is no fear of God in the soul.

There are flowers on apple trees, and there are empty flowers. The wind blew, and only a third of the flowers remained on the branches; the barren flowers flew to the ground. They fell down.

We must set ourselves up so that every word we say brings good, is not empty flower, but bears spiritual fruit.

I know many fathers. When they meet, they do not talk idlely, but talk about faith, about God’s providence, about salvation, about how best to be saved. We need to take an example from them.

Why repent of a mortal sin - if it cannot be forgiven?

Question: Why repent in confession if a mortal sin is not forgiven anyway? How is God's curse different from punishment?

Answer: The Word of God clearly speaks of the complete forgiveness of sins through repentance: “Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15); “Judge not, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37); “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out” (Acts 3:19).

The word “curse” in the New Testament books is used several times to unrepentant sinners who boldly resist the truth and lead others into pernicious iniquity: “Their eyes are filled with lust and incessant sin; they seduce unsteady souls; their hearts are accustomed to covetousness: they are the sons of the curse” (2 Pet. 2:14).

The Holy Fathers, revealing the teaching of Holy Scripture about sin and repentance, instruct us to sincerely approach the sacrament of confession in order to, by purifying ourselves, prepare ourselves for the Kingdom of Heaven, in which there will be eternal bliss. “And he showed me a pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb<…>And nothing will be cursed anymore; but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His servants will serve Him. And they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no night there, and they will have no need of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God illuminates them; and they will reign forever and ever (Rev. 22:1,3-5).

Priest Afanasy Gumerov, resident of Sretensky Monastery

Discussion: 6 comments

Hello! Here is one man who fought after the war, restored a factory, then worked as a mechanic, a huge number of medals and orders for the war and for labor. He earned Khrushchev and a pension of 30 thousand. But he lived honestly, he didn’t steal with dignity, he didn’t kill, but he couldn’t come to church either. Son after Afghanistan, he was paralyzed, looked after him until he began to walk. And his neighbor received a wound to his right finger at the front, worked in a co-op trade, after the war at a trading base he was convicted of embezzlement, then he became involved in currency in the 60s, he was convicted again in the 70s He was convicted of murder, in the 90s he made a huge fortune and priests ran to him to bless his car, his house, his telephone, and of course they confessed to him. And the first one, as I understand it, deserves God to burn in hell, and the second one will be in heaven, he repented and gave money for the temple

Answer

1. Hello Alexey!
   Whatever the Lord finds a person doing, that is what he will judge. There are many examples from the lives of holy people. The Holy Reverend Mary of Egypt repented and prayed for more than 30 years, living in the desert, and before that she was a harlot. There are also such sad examples when some ascetics, through prayer and fasting, reached spiritual heights, but were tempted by the temptation of the devil and died. The Lord judges a person not like us, not externally, but internally. If a person lived according to the voice of his conscience, did not do bad things to people, did not go against God, then the Lord can have mercy on such a person and take him into the Kingdom of Heaven. Also, if a person goes to church, observes everything, but does not have love, peace, humility, then he can perish and go to hell. The external is of course important, but the internal state of a person is even more important. Let me give you an example. Two people died - the abbot (that is, the mentor of the monastery) and a simple beggar. Demons came to take the abbot’s soul; the soul did not want to leave the body, so they pulled it out with fiery hooks. The soul of the beggar also did not want to come out, although bright angels came for it. Then the Lord ordered the angel to sing her a beautiful song, and the soul came out and led her to Paradise. This example suggests that the Lord can save any person, in any class and condition, and the Lord can also punish the soul of a person, even a monk or priest, if he did not sincerely observe God’s Law. With God everything is fair. But God still does not look for a reason to punish a person, but, on the contrary, looks for any opportunity to justify a person and save him, because God is LOVE.
   With God blessing!

   Answer

Good afternoon
I didn’t find the right section where I can write my question. Please, tell me how to be and tell me, please, what consequences of my sin can be. I recently came to God and repented of my sins. I have a young man, the relationship is just beginning. And I committed two sins at once. The first is not trust in God, I could not rely on the will of God, and tell myself, at a certain moment, that let it be as my Lord wants, at some point I got nervous when this young man stopped calling me (I just really I was alone for a long time and at some point I was very afraid of losing him) and against this background, I didn’t know how to cope with myself, I entered into fornication with another man only once and immediately regretted it very much. I repent very strongly of both my sins and distrust of the will of God and fornication. I was at confession, confessed, now I read the penitential canon, I bow. But my soul hurts for these sins and I am afraid that my young man will also be taken away from me as a punishment. Please comment on my situation. Thank you very much in advance for your answer!

Answer

1. Hello Nina!
   It’s good that you confessed and are now trying to improve. Rely entirely on God and His holy will. Pray, do good deeds and the Lord will not judge you severely and will help you. But for this you still need to not condemn anyone and forgive everyone. If we want God to forgive us sins, especially grave ones, then we ourselves must forgive all our offenders and enemies, if we have them.
   Peace be with you and God's blessing!

   Answer

Everything we do in our lives is sin! And often mortal! How to live in modern world without getting angry, without being despondent at times, when even milk during Lent is a sin? And so you live in fear that all this is impossible, and I’m sinning! And what is the point of repenting if you realize that you will continue to do all this, because we are people, and there is no other way to live? That is why despondency sets in that it is impossible to fulfill all the requirements!

Answer

1. Hello, Natalia!
   Not everything is as scary as you think. The Commandments were established in order to identify sin. Fasting is given in order to accustom a person to abstinence and give a person the opportunity to free himself from the slavery of sin or passion. The Church established the Holy Sacraments. The sacrament of repentance gives a person the opportunity to improve; the main thing is that there is desire and desire, and God will help. We encourage people to improve gradually. We do not require a person to immediately comply with everything. If a person has recently come to faith, we advise him to slowly accustom himself to fasting, prayer, and good deeds. But a person must strive for perfection all his life. You didn’t manage to keep the entire fast; you sinned, but repent. God will not ask at the Last Judgment why you sinned, but will ask why you did not repent. When a person falls into the mud, he hurries to wash off this dirt, he does not lose heart and does not think that I will fall again anyway, I will get dirty, so why wash? It’s the same in spiritual life. No matter how many times we sin, no matter how many times we fall, we need to get up and repent. This is the fight against sin.
   God help you!

   Answer

I adhere to the worldview of Buddhism.
To open your soul with repentance, you need to penetrate inside your soul with your consciousness, recognize the selfish, harmful motivation of the soul, rethink and change your way of thinking, change your way of life. . This deep immersion takes years of life, years or decades of spiritual practice. And you want a person, without any preparation, to enter deep consciousness in 5 minutes and repent. This is impossible.

There are two paths - the first path is gradual - from simple to complex, step by step a person purifies his actions, words and thoughts, thus approaching holiness.
There is another way, when a person finds himself in a force majeure situation, when he has reached the Peak of suffering, then at Super Effort he repents and immediately changes his lifestyle. . But even in this case, it takes time - months at least.

Not all people, even those baptized in the church, regularly confess. Most often, this is hindered by a feeling of awkwardness, embarrassment, someone is stopped by pride. Many, not accustomed to confessing from an early age, at a more mature age keep putting off the moment when they need to tell about their sins for the first time. Every year it becomes more and more difficult to decide to go to confession. In order to remove the burden from the soul, start talking with God and sincerely repent of the sins committed, you should learn how to confess correctly. Going to confession will definitely help you: you yourself will feel how your soul brightens.

Confession is one of the most significant rites in the Christian church. The ability to recognize one's sins and tell God about them, to repent of one's deeds, is very important for a believer.

What is confession for us?
First of all, it is important to understand the essence of confession, its role in our lives.

Conversation with God. You can confess at home, in front of an icon, immersed in prayer.

At any stage of life, a person encounters many obstacles. The path to the Kingdom of Heaven is thorny and requires enormous effort. And if you do not show strength of spirit and firmness of will, then there will always be enough reasons not to go to church, not to pray, not to fast. We must not forget that we came into this world naked and before the Lord we always remain so. Our robe is only God's grace. If we do not clothe ourselves with it and do not accept Christ into our hearts, we can easily become a victim of the eternal enemy of man - the devil prowling everywhere. We must remember that in this difficult life, we Christians are like lambs among wolves. The Gospel says that whoever endures to the end will be saved. However, patience is different. A Christian must be patient, but at the same time an active opponent of all injustice and evil.

Christianity is, first of all, a way of life and thinking. If we strive for excellence, we should not look back.

Repentance

Repentance is the awareness of one’s sin, grief over it and the determination not to repeat it in the future; it is the correction of one’s sins in deed and thought.

1. What is repentance
2. Repentance has a beginning, but has no end, it lasts a lifetime
3. Repentance can be expressed in different ways.
4. Anyone who deliberately commits a sin, delaying correction and repentance, sins against the Holy Spirit and can die without repentance
5. There is no repentance after death
6. The devil can no longer repent and change for good

In order to serve God’s mercy, we must have mercy on others in every possible way.
JUDGMENT WITHOUT MERCY – TO HE WHO HAS NOT WORKED MERCY!

This is the harsh law of Retribution on earth that the Lord established. Everything comes back to us in this life. Therefore, it is not in vain that they say: “What a man sows, that he will also reap!”

You did not regret and did not spare, you, too, WILL NOT be pitied and will not be spared!
You told a LIE about a person, and there will be gossip about you too!
You didn’t help, they WILL NOT HELP you!
You have offended and humiliated a person, you too will be OFFENSED and humiliated!
You took and appropriated SOMEONE ELSE’S, they will STEAL from you and appropriate what is yours!
You did nasty things to people - and they will DO EVIL things to you!
You deceived and betrayed a person, and you will also be DECEIVED and betrayed!

He does good deeds - he reaps good, and he does evil deeds - he reaps evil!

Whether people believe in God or not, this law of Retribution has always worked and punishes all people who do evil.

Confession. How to repent correctly.

How to repent correctly

You need to repent - in the past tense. Nine out of ten who come to confession do not know how to confess... Indeed, this is so. Even people who regularly go to church do not know how to do many things in it, but the worst thing is with confession. Very rarely does a parishioner confess correctly. You have to learn to confess. Let's talk about the most common misconceptions, misconceptions and mistakes. A person goes to confession for the first time; he heard that before receiving communion, one must confess. And that in confession you need to tell your sins. He immediately has a question: for what period should he “report”? Over your entire life, starting from childhood? But can you retell all this? Or do you not need to retell everything, but just say: “In childhood and youth I showed selfishness many times” or “In my youth I was very proud and vain, and even now, in fact, I remain the same”?

Necessary. not deceit. He did not come to the healthy, but to the sick - the Lord said, Sin is a disease, one of the manifestations of which is a petrified state of the soul. But only those that you see for yourself, and you are not in a blind guess and are not even completely sure that this is a sin... Otherwise, you read books with all sorts of classifications and then get lost when God reveals sin - this does not cause despondency or embarrassment, it is even a joyful state, when you finally understand something that you couldn’t understand, eureka, just a person quietly understands that what he is doing is harming him

Although this may not even be a sin, but so that the devil does not torment you with doubts and embarrassment, it is better to confess, and then you will figure it out, time will tell whether it is yours or someone else’s...

Then God doesn’t demand that we immediately get rid of it, he simply demands that you do something against him; sometimes it’s impossible to get rid of sin right away. Don't even think about him too much. you just lead a spiritual life, pray, fast 2 times a week, and during fasting, this will enlighten you.

Sometimes a young confessor finds it difficult to list sins, i.e. he simply cannot remember the most important and more frequently committed sins. Unfortunately, often holding liturgical books before their eyes, our theologians and our clergy rarely deign to pay attention to what is printed there in red or even black, except for the prayer books themselves, of which a good half is never read.

So, a fairly complete enumeration of all kinds of sins can be compiled according to the following rites of the breviary and canon: 1) according to the rite of confession, 2) according to the evening prayer to the Holy Spirit, 3) according to the final evening prayer: I confess to you the only God, glorified in the Trinity, etc., which placed in the Kiev-Pechersk and Pochaevsky regulars, 4) according to the fourth prayer for Holy Communion: “For at Thy terrible and impartial judgment is coming”; Unfortunately, over the past 30 years this prayer has ceased to be included in the correct books, but it is included in the Psalter Following, 5).

How to repent of committing an abortion Humanly speaking, this sin cannot be forgiven. And only the Lord, Whom we nailed to the Cross with our multiple and terrible sins, only the One Lord, being not only a man, but also Almighty God, is able to wash away this terrible - perhaps the most terrible - human sin with His own life-giving blood. Every woman who has begun to repent of what she has done because of her youth, because of her weakness, because of ignorance, because of the violence of her relatives, because of the darkness of her soul, should know exactly how to repent of this sin, so that God would forgive it and blot it out, so that the terrible a torn wound in the soul, so that we may seek mercy for the children we have killed. First of all, having felt all the savagery and godlessness of what was done, we must in the future renounce such a sin and the possibility of committing it. Moreover, it is appropriate to condemn ourselves, and not the circumstances, not the verdict of the doctors, not the combined efforts of our relatives who pushed us to kill.

First of all, like Baptism, Wedding, Communion is a SACRAMENT. This is reconciliation with God. We all have a conscience that is not clear, the soul is oppressed by sins and it gives out its call - a person feels the need to confess so that his soul, his conscience, becomes calmer and purer. There is such a figurative comparison: demons painstakingly record all our sins in their books, and they will accuse a person posthumously, showing that he is theirs, that his place is in hell, and the sins forgiven in confession are erased from them forever.

It is very important to understand that in the Sacrament of Confession exactly those sins are forgiven for which a person has sincerely repented and does not want to repeat them and wants to get rid of this sin. If he understands that it will be difficult for him not to sin again, he asks God not only to ask him, but also to help him in the fight against this passion. To come to repent, say, of adultery with the firm confidence that you have “thrown away” your sins—“reset the counter” and can sin again—is a wild profanation of the Sacrament of Repentance.

Dear father, good afternoon. Thank you very much for your kind answers. Again I ask for your help.
I cannot repent of one sin. This is one of my bad habits. Intellectually I understand that this is a sin, but I cannot hate it in myself, on the contrary, it seems to me that if I refuse this, I will not be able to be myself, I will lose self-confidence, I will not be able to communicate with people, I will not know how to escape from tedious work and heavy thoughts, etc. Sometimes it seems that this is the only joy in my life. In general, I seem to be better with this habit, but without it it seems that I am nothing of myself. And I'm very, very sorry to lose her.
I understand that I need to ask the Lord to help me hate this sin and love myself without it, but I still return to it after some time after prayer.

For every Christian, issues of relationship with God and the Church are very important in life. In fact, for a true believer, they are the most important! But not everyone knows how, when and why an Orthodox Christian needs to do this. There are many such aspects. One of the most controversial, especially among the younger generation, is the issue of the need for communion and confession. LG correspondent Vita Lemekh met with the archpriest of the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord in the city of Lyubertsy Gennady Khanykin and asked him questions that concern many people. Today is the first part of the conversation, which turned out to be very informative.

– Father, is a person’s spiritual life possible without confession?

– A person cannot lead a spiritual life without the church, without the sacraments of the church, and confession is one of the sacraments of the church. Anyone who thinks that he leads a spiritual life without going to church or running to light a candle on holidays is deceiving himself.

Often from many people who have to talk about the salvation of the soul, you hear the following answer: “Oh, I still have time to repent of my sins and reconcile with God... I’m not going to die!” But in the Bible there is only one case of turning to God in the last hour of life: this is the repentance of the thief on the cross.
Dear reader, if you have not made peace with God, do not count on the last hour. Every person's life can end suddenly. An illness can take away a person’s consciousness, and suffering can be such that it does not even allow one to think about the soul. If you are now indifferent to your salvation, can you be sure that at that moment you will have a desire to seek salvation in Christ? Do not forget that “now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation.” Don't wait for another opportunity. You don't know what the next hour has in store for you. Satan, the enemy of human souls, forces people to postpone until later this important decision, on which your future on earth will depend.

Number of entries: 200

Hello Father, I have a few questions. Firstly, while I was surfing the Internet, I was looking for Orthodox literature, and I accidentally came across a book, and I didn’t understand it right away, but when I started reading, I immediately closed the site, realizing that I had stumbled upon heretical literature. Do I need to repent of this, or, since I immediately closed it, having stumbled upon it by accident, can I just pray in prayer at home? And the second question: I’m going to Elder John Mironov, he is holding the rite of general confession, can I confess at this confession and repent of the sins that I write down on a piece of paper, to myself? Thank you in advance.

Arkady

Hello, Arkady. You need to repent of everything that your conscience denounces. And, of course, immediately as soon as this exposure occurs, without delay. At home confession, you need to remember your sins committed during the day by name, and at confession in church, you should call entire families of sins “by last name.” Don't be shallow. In no case can general confession be a complete replacement for private confession. It is permissible only for those who still find the opportunity to confess in detail in private about once a month. Father John, due to his weakness in years, cannot accept confession from everyone who wants to, so he resorts to general confession. Therefore, find an opportunity to confess to another priest.

Priest Alexander Beloslyudov

Hello, father! I have a habit, an inveterate and bad one, of ironizing myself, mocking myself, or something. For example, they were rude to me in a store, I come out of there, all embittered, and the thought appears in my head: “Oh, wow, she was offended! Great person! And don’t lay a finger on her. How was she rude to mom this morning?” and in that spirit. It seems to me that this is something wrong, because the sin I committed should lead me to repentance, to the point where I ask God for forgiveness and the strength to correct myself, but with these thoughts, with irony, I most likely only bring hatred towards myself, and then I suffer from it.

Elena

Perhaps I agree with you, Elena: such irony has little to do with humility and self-reproach; it is better to repent of your sins and ask for forgiveness. By the way, read about this from Father John of Kronstadt: in his diaries there are wonderful moments when he had to sin and he prayed to God for forgiveness. What a wonderful role model!

Hegumen Nikon (Golovko)

Question for Father Maxim. 1) Before I joined the church, I, like many of my peers, believed in horoscopes and wore a zodiac sign. After joining the church, I, of course, repented of this, but I still have my Zodiac sign, even though I haven’t worn it for a long time. Tell me, what should I do with it? The fact is that my mother once gave it to me, I don’t think she will allow me to get rid of it. On the other hand, I myself now perceive it not as a talisman, but simply as a beautiful decoration on the theme “animals” (such a graceful, graceful goat). 2) Well, the second question is of the same type: my mother once bought 2 books with recipes for traditional medicine. But it, along with the usual recipes, contains the texts of prayers, which are accompanied by various conspiracies. What to do with these books? They are now stored in my closet. I would never keep them, but they are not mine, but my mother’s, and my mother is a very unchurched person... Is there a sin on me then? And what is the best way to proceed?

Maria

Maria, I would advise you to transform your zodiac into a more neutral piece of jewelry. I would throw the books away.

Archpriest Maxim Khizhiy

Hello, father, I have the following life situation. 9 months ago my husband died, we had a child, but it so happened that after 6 months I met a man, we started dating. I understand that this is wrong, but I can’t refuse him, and I understand that I need to endure mourning for a year, I don’t know what to do, what to do, I dreamed about him, now I’ve talked to a young man, we will communicate, but no intimate We won’t have a relationship, tell me how to do the right thing, what needs to be done, confess, how to correct it, do I understand that I have sinned?

Marina, a widow has the right to legal marriage. I emphasize - for a legal, and not for cohabitation and “romantic” relationship. You are thinking correctly - you need to go to church for confession. Say the same thing you wrote here. No one “legally” obliges you to mourn for a year, it’s just a good old tradition. And it’s quite stupid to rush into marriage or a relationship: it takes time for passions and emotions to subside.

Archpriest Maxim Khizhiy

Hello! I am 18 years old. When I started dating a guy, I stopped going to church. I broke up with my boyfriend, but I haven’t been to church for a year; I’m embarrassed to appear in front of the priest, because I also dropped out of Sunday school due to being busy at the university. I don't know where to start. Help me please.

Marina

Dear Marina, don’t be ashamed to go to church - well, I had to leave Sunday school because of my studies. Now you have entered the mode where you can devote Sunday to the temple, and you have come. Everything is fine. A good place to start is to simply go to a service, such as an all-night vigil on Saturday. Enjoy the temple and pray. And it will work out on its own. May the Lord help you!

Priest Sergius Osipov

Good day! Initially, I want to say that under any circumstances I do not consider myself right, no matter what, I did not have the right to do this, and this makes me consider myself very sinful! I had an abortion. I realize and sincerely repent of this, so I want to beg my murdered child, please tell me the steps, how can I do this?

Anastasia

Nastya, your child is a martyr. There is no need to beg him. But you need to pray for yourself earnestly and go to confession. What drove you to such a sin at such a young age? Here's something to think about.

Archpriest Maxim Khizhiy

Hello, father. I ask for your advice on how I can repent of my sins throughout my life, how to be humble and love everyone. I go to church (on Saturdays and Sundays, because I work). I confess and receive communion. I try to live according to the commandments, but it doesn’t always work out (and there is irritation and pride, “and I put every sin into my soul”).

Lyudmila

Lyudmila, repent of what you remember, and try not to commit new sins - that’s the whole path of repentance. What else? It is impossible to jump above human nature. And don’t “wind up” yourself unnecessarily in this matter: the Lord will not ask you beyond human strength. And love for people will come after a deep awareness of one’s sinfulness.

Hegumen Nikon (Golovko)

Hello. I have a question. I became pregnant with my future husband even before the registration in the registry office. after pregnancy we got married and got married. We really wanted a child, and I prayed for him. Only now I understand that it was wrong, because I prayed to God for a child while living in sin. And now I heard that you can’t beg for children, that later there will be a lot of problems with them. Is it so? And every time there is a threat or some kind of fear, I pray. But is this right? After all, it turns out that I do not rely on God, but want everything to be my way. I repent of the fact that, while living in fornication, I prayed for a child. What to do now? Before the wedding, I confessed. And now I go to church, but the thought that the children are not being begged for does not leave me.

Olga

What does this have to do with your sins! A mother must pray for her child! Repent of your sins and pray for your children!

Archpriest Maxim Khizhiy

Good evening! I was baptized before I was one year old. Until the age of 16, I felt a connection with the Lord, and then, like a rope, it broke off by thread. I led the wrong lifestyle - I lived in a civil marriage with a man for two years, then had an affair with a married man. As you understand, this did not bring me happiness. Six months ago I met a man with whom I fell in love at first sight. By the will of the Lord, we see each other every day, since we work nearby. On my part, the feelings are so strong that the sight of him takes my breath away. For the first time I wanted a real family and children! From his behavior I understand that at least he has sympathy for me, but he does not take the first step. The situation of uncertainty, when neither yes nor no, tormented me so much that I could not find a place for myself, it was very difficult for me. Two months ago I realized that this was my punishment for my past life. I rethought my behavior, realized my mistakes, realized that I no longer want to make them. And an uncontrollable desire appeared to go to church for confession. I found a very good priest! This was my first confession, I cried and couldn’t stop. Father allowed me to receive communion and said that the appearance of this man in my life was a miracle of God! After communion, I cried all day. Now I don’t have such strong emotions that literally tore me apart for days on end. But the feelings didn’t go away! Have I not repented enough, why am I still going through this ordeal? Haven't my sins been forgiven me? After all, I did a lot of work on myself, realizing that I was living wrong and repenting of it, sincerely repenting!

Irina

Ira! You did a very faithful and important thing - you went to church for confession. But the fact is that sins leave behind scars on the soul, on a person’s ability to adequately perceive life, even on the ability to love. See what meeting a man does to you. Do you see how many emotions there are? Is it normal? After sad experiments on the soul, you will have to learn to walk like a person whose legs were broken. This also takes time. For everything to go away, for you to become adequate, you need to live without hobbies of the opposite sex. Well, at least a year! Otherwise, everything will go back to the well-worn rut for you: passion, relationships, sin, disappointment.

Archpriest Maxim Khizhiy

Hello! My name is Konstantin. When I was 18 years old, I broke a tombstone in a cemetery in a drunken state, now I can’t remember in what place and what the name of this person was, sometimes it really torments me, I really regret and repent of it. I understand that this cannot be fixed, but please help me, what can be done in this case? For both the deceased and the Lord to forgive me, I understood a lot. Thank you in advance.

Konstantin

First of all, you need to confess, Konstantin. And after this, the soul will tell you what else needs to be done in order to finally find peace from this sin: maybe some kind of good deed or alms, or provide help, for example, by caring for the tombstones in the cemetery. Consult in this matter with the priest to whom you will confess, and listen to your soul.

Hegumen Nikon (Golovko)

Hello, father. My husband and I have been married for 13 years. A month ago I found out that he cheated on me with someone else for six months. He says that intimate relations with me were not enough for him. Now I’m tired, now it’s church holidays, now I’m sick. Although I somehow dealt with this before. He says he didn't love her, but he liked her. He told me about the betrayal himself when he decided not to date that woman anymore, when he realized how dear I and the child were to him. I realized what a sin he had committed. The husband went to confession and repented. He has not yet been allowed to take communion. He asks me for forgiveness, says that he has become insanity. I love him, but for now it’s hard for me to forget and forgive everything. I always trusted him. Can I continue to go to confession and communion if I have not yet forgiven him? Am I doing the right thing by asking God to forgive my husband his sin, or should he only pray for himself? And one more thing: how can we return that unity of souls that (we think) we had? Thank you.

Lydia

If you love, move on. Forgive, I think you have forgiven, if you live together. But the insult will not be forgotten soon. You can and should take communion. But we need to think about why everything was so dim in our intimate life. This doesn't mean everything is your fault. Your husband also needs to think about why you were so tired that nothing but sleep was unnecessary.

Archpriest Maxim Khizhiy

Hello, father, I have a few questions. I heard that if the parents are not married, then in the next world they will not be able to meet each other and their children. I have a lot of sins, in my life there was alcohol, drugs, abortions, I did a lot of terrible things... I’m 21, now I’ve completely changed for the good, I have a little daughter, I live without a husband. I really want to be cleansed of all my sins, is this possible? To become, how to say, pure before God?

Hello, Julia. We are called to holiness, but we must realize that the Lord alone is holy. We must force ourselves to practice holiness in our lives, this is the purpose for which man was created. No amount of time is enough to achieve this goal, so God gives man eternity. And so that we can enter eternity, He gives Himself. He came not to save the righteous, but to call sinners to repentance. A repentant sinner, struggling with his passions, forcing himself to live according to the Gospel - this is the one who, by the grace of God, enters the Kingdom of Heaven. Follow the Orthodox Church, be guided by its teachings, and do not lose hope. In the “other world” we will meet everyone, both relatives and those whom we insulted, we will not go anywhere. But there will be no continuation of marriages in eternal life. You should not imagine that life in any way; it is unimaginable. In our earthly experience there are neither appropriate words nor concepts to express and understand it. Let's leave it at that. God help you.

Priest Alexander Beloslyudov

Is it possible to repent of sin if a persistent and clear aversion to sin has not been developed?

Maksim

Hello, Maxim. Repentance doesn't give you anything. We repent easily and constantly - he raised his voice, and immediately repented, until next time. What is also necessary is condemnation of sin, condemnation of oneself, and a determination not to sin in the future. It is useful to imagine yourself on your deathbed awaiting trial. After all, we do not know at what moment our life will end and we will appear before God. Scripture directly says, remember your death and you will never sin. The gracious help of the Sacraments is also necessary. We must confess often. What we need is not repentance, but healing from sin. God help you.

Priest Alexander Beloslyudov

Hello! Why is it believed that after death a person loses the opportunity to repent, why cannot a person’s soul, as during earthly life, pray and ask God for the forgiveness of sins? If possible, indicate where this opinion came from (the works of the holy fathers, Scripture or something else)?

Tatiana

Hello Tatiana! In the Gospel there is a parable about the rich man and Lazarus, which clearly indicates the impossibility of repentance after death: “and besides all this, a great chasm has been established between us and you, so that those who want to cross from here to you cannot cross, nor can they cross from there to us.” (Luke 16:26). The Holy Fathers, following the Word of God, unanimously teach that the time given to us for repentance and correction of our soul is this, our temporary life. After death, a person will face God’s judgment and reward for what he has done in this life. “It's a terrible truth. Unrepentant sinners after death lose all opportunity to change for the better and, therefore, invariably remain devoted to eternal torment (sin cannot but torment). The time and place for the action of grace is only here: after death - only the prayers of the Church, and then on repentant sinners they can act, on those who have acceptability in their souls, the light of good deeds, carried away by them from this life, to which grace can be grafted God's or grace-filled prayers of the Church. Unrepentant sinners are undoubted sons of destruction” (Holy Right John of Kronstadt).

Priest Vladimir Shlykov

Hello, I ask for your help and clarification on what I should do, whether I’m doing the right thing or not, I’m completely confused and have no one to consult with... At the age of 18 (now I’m 30) I had an abortion, of my own free will, this is how the circumstances developed , I was deceived, unloved and unloved. Now I am married and we have a son, beloved and desired... I know that I am in sin, and I want to repent of it, I want to take communion, go to church, give my son communion, and I understand that I cannot do this until I will not repent of my sin... I only ask for advice on this: I repent that I did it, I realize, but I cannot repent of the fact that if I could return time, I would not do this again. One thing I know is that now I will never have an abortion again, but in that situation I could not do anything differently... Will God forgive me this sin? Will the priest take this as repentance, or am I unworthy? Am I sinning even more because I am still delaying and not confessing that sin? I'm scared. I’m scared and ashamed because I confessed before giving birth and didn’t say anything, I sinned again, maybe that’s why the birth was difficult, although I carried it easily. I just want to come to church and feel ashamed of my sin. Today I came to the conclusion that I want to pray, just sit in church... I don’t know if I wrote it clearly! Help me, tell me what to do. Thank you!

Anastasia

Dear Anastasia! Firstly, your son can and should be given communion, regardless of whether you take communion or not. Secondly, in confession you need to repent that you do not fully understand the gravity of the sin of infanticide. May the Lord help you to fully live the life of an Orthodox Christian, to realize and confess all your sins and enter the Kingdom of Heaven. God bless you!

Archpriest Andrey Efanov

Hello, I wanted to ask you: if I repent at confession for the second time of the same sin, is it possible to do this or not?

There is no sin that would exceed the mercy of God. Even Judas would have been forgiven if he had asked for forgiveness. Example Venerable Mary The Egyptian, who was a harlot for 17 years and then became a model of repentance and a great servant of God, gives us hope for the forgiveness of our sins.

I'm about to go to my first confession. How to prepare?

To confess, you need awareness of your sins, sincere repentance for them, a desire to God's help get better. You can write down some sins on a piece of paper as a cheat sheet so that you don’t get confused the first time (then do what you want with this piece of paper: you can throw it away, burn it, give it to the priest, save it until your next confession and compare what you have improved on, and than - no). With a long list of sins, it is better to come to the service in the middle of the week, rather than on Sunday. In general, it is better to start with the most painful thing that worries the soul, gradually moving on to minor sins.

I came to confession for the first time. The priest did not allow me to take communion - he advised me to read the Gospel as “homework”.

When a person does not know, for example, the rules traffic, then he doesn’t even know that he’s violating them. If a person does not know the Gospel, that is, the Law of God, then it is difficult for him to repent of sins, because he does not really understand what sin is. That is why it is useful to read the Gospel.

Is it possible to ask for forgiveness of the sins of parents and relatives in confession?

We cannot go to the doctor and get treatment for someone, we cannot eat for someone in the dining room, so in confession we ask for forgiveness for our sins and help in correcting them. And we pray for our loved ones ourselves and submit notes to churches.

In confession, I regularly repent of the fact that I live in fornication, but I continue to live this way - I’m afraid that my loved one will not understand me.

An Orthodox Christian should care about being understood by God. And according to His word, “fornicators will not inherit the Kingdom of God.” In addition, confession is not just a statement of sins, but also a desire to improve. In your case, the following situation arises: you come to the doctor (to confession in church), state that you are “sick” with sin, but do not receive treatment. Moreover, such a confession is also hypocritical. Of course, we repeat most of our confessed sins, but we must at least have the intention to improve, and you do not have it. Advice: quickly register the relationship at least with the registry office.

I am not yet ready to repent of one sin, because I will commit it again. In general, don’t go to confession yet? But other sins torment!

No matter how much we love our sins, at least at the level of reason we must understand that if we do not repent and correct ourselves, eternal punishment awaits us. Such a thought should contribute to the desire to correct all sins, because who can give himself a guarantee that he will live at least until the next day? And the Lord told us: “What I find you in, that’s what I judge.” Unfortunately, the vast majority of people immediately repeat most of their sins after confession, but this is not a reason not to repent of them. If a person is sincerely worried about this, if he wants to improve, even if he doesn’t succeed in everything right away, then, according to the words of the Holy Fathers, the Lord will accept even this desire as what he has done.

Is it possible to go to general confession?

The so-called general confession is rather a profanation of confession, because there is no confession as such. It’s something like this: a bunch of people came to the doctor, and he took out a piece of paper with a list of diseases and said: “Well, you sick people, now get well, be healthy!” It is doubtful that you will benefit from such an appointment with a doctor. This is allowed as an exception during a large influx of confessors during Lent, but the priest must emphasize that this is an exception: come to presanctified services on Wednesdays and Fridays, on Saturdays, go to churches somewhere on the outskirts of the city, where there are fewer people , but do not approach confession formally. Don't be happy that you didn't have to say anything, passing the responsibility onto the priest. In general, the door is opened to him who knocks, and whoever seeks finds.

At confession, all sins are forgiven. But what to do if sins from 10 or 20 years ago are remembered? Do they need to be confessed?

If sins are remembered and realized, then, of course, they must be confessed. It won't get any worse.

Serious sins, even though they have already been confessed, torment me greatly. Is it necessary to talk about them in confession again?

A sincerely repented and never repeated sin is forgiven once and for all. But such terrible sins as abortion, involvement in the occult, and murder gnaw at a person even after confession. Therefore, in them you can once again ask God for forgiveness, and you don’t have to say them in confession, but simply remember your crimes and try to make up for them with good deeds that are opposite to them.

Why should laity confess before communion, but priests do not? Is it possible to receive communion without confession?

What do you think, if you take a doctor and a patient without medical education, which of them is better versed in diets, prescribing medications, etc.? In some cases, a doctor can help himself, but an ordinary person is forced to seek help. People go to church to heal the soul, and there are sins that do not allow a person to take communion. A layman may not understand or know about this, and if he goes without confession, communion may serve him not for salvation, but for condemnation. Therefore, control in the form of a priest is needed. But clergy are more competent in such things and can control when they should go to confession, and when they can only ask for forgiveness from God.

Is there any evidence in the Bible that we should confess through a priest?

The Lord, sending the apostles to preach, said: “Whoever you forgive on earth will be forgiven in heaven.” What is this if not the right to accept repentance and forgive a person’s sins in the name of God? And He also said: “Receive the Holy Spirit; by Him forgive on earth, and it will be forgiven in heaven.” There were prototypes of repentance in the Old Testament, for example, the ritual with a scapegoat, the offering of sacrifices in the temple, for these were purification sacrifices for sins. This apostolic authority for the forgiveness of sins is received by all legitimate priests by virtue of succession, which is confirmed by the words of Christ: “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

It is not always possible to go to confession of sins in church. Can I confess in front of the icon at home?

Evening prayers end with daily confession of sins. But, nevertheless, from time to time a person must repent of them in confession.

I was preparing for my first confession, I read the book by John (Krestyankin) “The Experience of Constructing a Confession.” But when he approached the lectern, he could not say anything - tears flowed. Father absolved me of my sins. Is confession considered valid?

In confession, the main thing is not what we say, but what is in our hearts. For the Lord says so: “Son, give me your heart.” And King David taught: “The sacrifice to God is a broken spirit. God will not despise a contrite and humble heart.”

My grandmother is dying, she doesn’t understand anything, she doesn’t speak. Being of sound mind, she refused confession and communion. Is it possible to confess her now?

The Church accepts a person’s conscious choice without forcing his will. If a person, being of sound mind, wanted to begin the sacraments of the Church, but for some reason did not do this, then in case of clouding of his mind, remembering his desire and consent, one can still make such a compromise as communion and unction (so we give communion to infants or the insane). But if a person, being of sound consciousness, did not want to accept the sacraments of the church, refused to confess his sins, then even in the event of loss of consciousness, the Church does not force the choice of this person. Alas, it is his choice. Such cases are considered by the confessor, directly communicating with the patient and his relatives, after which a final decision is made. In general, of course, it is best to clarify your relationship with God in a conscious and adequate state.

I fell - the sin of fornication, although I gave my word, repented and was sure that this would not happen to me again. What to do?

Mary of Egypt was the greatest harlot. But everyone Lent The Church remembers her as a model of repentance. Conclusion: no matter how hard we fall, sincere repentance blots out sin and opens the gates of heaven. Let the very word fornication be disgusting to you, so that with God’s help this will never happen again.

It’s a shame to tell the priest about your sins in confession.

You should be ashamed when you sin. And shame in confession is false shame. We must think not about how the priest will look at us, but about how God will look at us. Moreover, any prudent priest will never condemn you, but will only rejoice, as a doctor rejoices at a recovering patient. If you cannot bring yourself to name the sins, write them on a piece of paper and give them to the priest. Or repent without details, in general terms. The main thing is to have a feeling of repentance, contrition, and a desire to improve.

If my sins are very shameful, can I tell the priest about them without details? Or will it be like hiding sin?

In order to treat bodily diseases, it is important for the doctor to know all the details of these diseases. You don’t have to describe the details of your sins, but it’s still better to call things by their proper names and not limit yourself to general phrases.

Is it necessary to go to confession if it turns out to be formal?

In our relationship with God, sincerity is key. We must understand that formalism and hypocrisy will not work in relationships with God. But if your conscience agrees that many of your words in confession sound cold and formal, this indicates that, nevertheless, the sin you are confessing bothers you and you want to get rid of it. Therefore, name your sins in confession, saying that while admitting them, you see some sins, but you are not yet able to hate them. And therefore, ask God for forgiveness so that this vision develops into hatred of sin and the desire to get rid of it. The Holy Fathers teach that even if we repeat the same sins again, we nevertheless must confess them, by doing this we seem to loosen the stump, which is then easier to tear out.

Is it true that in confession one should not repent of sins committed before baptism?

If you have washed dirty clothes, wash them again only when they become dirty again. If a person accepts the sacrament of baptism with faith, then, indeed, he receives forgiveness for all sins committed up to that moment. There is no point in repenting of them anymore. There are simply such terrible sins as murder, abortion, in which the soul again and again wants to ask for forgiveness from God. That is, the case when God has already forgiven, but a person cannot forgive himself. In such cases, it is permissible to speak once again about terrible sins in confession.

I'm afraid I incorrectly named the sin in confession. What to do?

The main thing is not what to call your sin, but to have a feeling of repentance and a desire to improve.

My spiritual father confesses to me at home, so I am better aware of my sins, I am not in a hurry, I can ask him a question. Is it possible to do this?

Can. Many people before the revolution, not having the opportunity to often visit Optina Pustyn, wrote to the elders and confessed in letters. In your case, it is important that you not just talk, but that the priest reads a prayer of permission at the end.

Is it possible to confess without preparation?

When a person has appendicitis, or he doesn’t sleep at night because of toothache, he doesn’t need any tests, examinations, ultrasounds to identify the disease. He rushes to the doctor for help. So it is with confession. If our heart hurts that we, for example, stole something, went to witches, had an abortion, fell into fornication, drunkenness, i.e. when we specifically know what we are sinning, then no books are needed , we go to confession and confess our sins. But a person who is not familiar with the Gospel, does not know the laws of God and, even breaking them, does not realize that he is sinning, naturally must prepare. Study the laws of God, find out what he sins in, and thus prepare himself, go to confession to a priest.

In what cases can a priest impose penance? How to remove it?

Penance is excommunication from communion for some sin for some time. It may consist of fasting, intense prayer, etc. Upon completion of the imposed penance, it is removed by the same priest who imposed it.

While getting ready for my first confession, I found a list of sins on the Internet. There were: listening to music, going to the cinema, to concerts, going on rides... Is it true?

Firstly, it is impossible to realize and remember all sins, we have so many of them. Therefore, in confession we must repent of especially serious sins that bother us and from which we really want to get rid of. Secondly, as for attractions, music, cinema, then, as they say, there are nuances. Because music and films are different and not always harmless. For example, films filled with debauchery, violence, horror. Many rock music songs glorify the devil and are literally dedicated to him. Well, I’m sure there are absolutely harmless attractions, not counting, of course, the hobby of computer games and consoles. Because gambling addiction (gaming addiction) has terrible consequences for both the soul and the body, which cannot be said about ordinary carousels and swings.

There is an opinion that it is undesirable to confess “according to the list”, but that you need to remember everything.

If a person, preparing for confession, simply rewrites the manual for penitents, and then reads out this list during confession, then this is an ineffective confession. And if a person is worried, afraid from excitement to forget about some of his sins, and at home in front of a candle and an icon with tears he writes down on paper the repentant feelings of his heart, then such preparation can only be welcomed.

Can a priest's wife confess to her husband?

To do this, you must literally be a holy person, because it is purely humanly difficult to be completely sincere, revealing all the nakedness of your soul to your husband. Even if mother does this, she could harm the priest himself. After all, he is also a weak person. Therefore, I would recommend not going to confession with your husband unless absolutely necessary.

A relative of mine who went to church and participated in its sacraments suddenly died. There remains a piece of paper with sins. Is it possible to read it to the priest so that he can say the prayer of permission in absentia?

If a person was preparing for confession, but died on the way to the temple, the Lord accepted his intentions and forgave his sins. So no correspondence confession is required anymore.

I go to confession regularly. I won’t say that I don’t see my sins, but the sins are the same. Should we say the same thing in confession?

But we brush our teeth every day, right? And we wash ourselves and wash our hands, despite the fact that they get dirty again. So it is with the soul. This is what the Gospel calls for: the number of times you fall, the number of times you get up. So there is only one conclusion: if we dirty our clothes, we clean our clothes, if we pollute our soul with sins, we cleanse our soul with repentance.

What consequences does the recollection of confessed sins have on the soul?

If you remember with a shudder, for example, an abortion, it will be useful. But if you remember with relish, for example, the sins of fornication, then this is sinful.

Is electronic confession allowed via the Internet?

Your doctor can tell you over the phone which medications to take for which symptoms. But, for example, it is impossible to perform a transaction over the phone. Similarly, you can ask a priest something via the Internet and get advice, but you still have to go to the sacraments yourself. But if someone is stranded on a desert island, but somehow contacts a priest by email, he can repent of his sins by asking the priest to read a prayer of absolution. That is, such a format of confession can be allowed when there is no other opportunity for repentance.

At what age should boys go to confession, and at what age should girls go to confession?

The rules indicate, without dividing between boys and girls, that a person begins confession at about 10 years of age or as he realizes the meaning of confession. And in Rus' (probably very smart children) it is customary to start confessing children from the age of 7.

I came to confession for the first time in 20 years. He repented of his affair with his wife and did not remember any more sins. Father said that in my case it was necessary to come with a huge list of sins and that the Christian in me had died...

In fact, confession does not require a long list of sins written on paper. In confession, a person says what he cannot forget, what hurts his soul, and no piece of paper is needed for this. For what is the point of sitting at home, copying out the next manual for penitents almost one after another, if at the same time the person has not felt the depth of his fall and has no desire to correct himself? In your case, the Christian in you did not die, he simply slept in a deep sleep for 20 years. Once you arrived at the temple, he began to wake up. The task of the confessor in this case is to help you resurrect the Christian within you. So, in form, you seemed to be rightly subjected to a thrashing, but in essence they could actually completely kill the remnants of Christianity in your soul. I would like to wish you, through the instructions of the Holy Fathers, listening to the voice of conscience and good priests, to come to the Church and live in it all your life with hope for the Kingdom of Heaven.

I want to go to confession and receive communion, but I constantly put it off out of fear of the Lord. How to overcome fear?

The fear of sudden death must overcome the fear of confession, because no one knows at what moment the Lord will call his soul to answer. But it’s scary to appear before God with all your negative baggage; it’s wiser to leave it here (through confession).

Does a priest have the right to violate the sacrament of confession?

The secret of confession cannot be disclosed to anyone and under no justification. There were cases when a priest, keeping confession secret, even went to prison.

I don’t go to confession because I’m afraid for the priest, who takes all the sins upon himself and then gets sick.

John the Baptist, pointing to Christ, said: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who took away the sins of the world.” No priest can take upon himself the sins of the people who confess to him; only Christ can do this. Throw away all your fears and false shame and rush to confession.

After confession and communion, I felt relieved. Minor feuds in the family disappeared and well-being improved. But most importantly: I noticed that my prayers to God were heard, requests for the health of my family were being fulfilled.

Your words indicate that when you sincerely turn to God with a request for forgiveness of sins, the Lord, who said “Ask, and it will be given to you,” fulfills his promise. And since our sins are very often the cause of our illnesses, troubles, failures, then when these sins are forgiven, the cause of all troubles disappears. That is, when the causes disappear, the consequences also disappear: a person’s health is restored, successes in work appear, and family relationships etc.