True repentance in Orthodoxy is a necessary condition preceding the Sacrament of Confession and Communion. Jesus Christ warned all people that without true repentance they would perish. (Luke 13:5)
Repentance and confession have a beginning, but there can be no end while we are alive. John the Baptist began his ministry with a call to repent, for the Kingdom of God is already at hand. (Matthew 4:17)
Every Orthodox believer is obliged to understand the difference between repentance and confession, and why the second is impossible without the first.
Repentance and confession - what's the difference?
Having committed a bad act, be it shouting, deception, envy or hypocrisy, a true believer will feel a reproach of conscience through the Holy Spirit. Having realized sinfulness, a person, at the same moment or at home during prayer, asks God and man for forgiveness, sincerely repenting of the deeds committed.
How to pray for repentance:
Repentance for sins
Repentance does not involve repeatedly returning to a perfect sin; it is a true renunciation of sin and a decision not to do it again.
The smartest of books, the Bible, gives a very harsh definition in this case, comparing a person who repents and returns to his bad deeds to a dog who returns to his vomit. (Proverbs 26:11)
An Orthodox Christian does not need a priest to repent; he himself consciously condemns the wrongdoing and decides never to do that again. The Sacrament of Confession takes place directly before God, but in the presence of a priest, for it is said in Holy Scripture that Jesus is where several people gather. (Matthew 18:20)
Important! Confession is the final act of repentance. Confessed sins no longer have spiritual power in the life of a Christian; it is forbidden to even remember them. After confession, a person is clean before God and is allowed to receive the Sacrament of Communion.
About the Church and the Sacraments:
True repentance in Orthodoxy through the Sacrament of Confession allows one to partake of the Body and Blood of Jesus, to be filled with his power and grace, and to receive entry into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Priests on repentance
According to Isaac the Syrian, sincere repentance is a wide gate for God's grace, and there is no other way.
Silouan of Athos argued that to those who dislike their sinful deeds, God will forgive all sins.
In his “Letters to Spiritual Children,” Abbot Nikon begged the Orthodox believers remaining on earth to constantly repent, considering themselves sinful tax collectors, begging God for mercy.
Repentance
In the book “Paths to Salvation,” Theophan the Recluse writes that through repentance, a sinner learns to love his neighbor, because with forgiveness there is no longer pride and conceit, and if there is, then there is no repentance. Everyone checks themselves.
Hegumen Gury also attached great importance to repentance, claiming that only through repentance can the existing world be cleansed.
Saint Ephraim the Syrian compares repentance to a crucible, in the fire of which simple metals are melted, and gold and silver come out.
Jesus left two main commandments on earth - love for God and man.
Three possible paths of repentance
Only angels do not fall, and demons cannot rise before the Creator, but man is given both to fall and to be understood. Human fall is not a lifelong sentence. Through sins, Jesus develops Christian character, which is characterized by:
- repentance;
- obedience;
- tolerance;
- worship of God;
- love for one's neighbor.
No man has yet been born on earth, except the Savior Jesus Christ, who would live his life in complete holiness, without sinning.
A striking example can be the life of the Apostle Peter, who in anger cut off a soldier’s ear, transgressing the commands of Jesus, whom he then denied three times. Christ, seeing the sincere repentance of His teaching, made it the cornerstone of the Christian church.
Why did Judas betray and hang himself, his conscience was tormented, but there was no repentance and faith; would the Lord really not have forgiven him for sincere repentance?
Important! Repentance before God in solitude can correct many sins, let go of any shame that holds and prevents one from coming to confession.
Only in dead hearts there is no shame, regret for what they have done, repentance and understanding of the gravity of the offense. As soon as a person repents, angels sing in Heaven. (Luke 15:7)
Unrepentant sin is like a disease; if you do not immediately get rid of bad habits, then over time the whole body will rot. That's why postponing repentance until later is very dangerous.
During the day, the Almighty many times gives a person the opportunity to repent of his offense:
- immediately after the sin has been committed;
- during confession.
When repenting, a prayer is read every time a Christian remembers some sin committed during the day.
Heavenly Father! I come to You in prayer, aware of all my sinfulness. I believe Your Word. I believe that You accept everyone who comes to You. Lord, forgive all my sins, be merciful to me. I don't want to live my old life. I want to belong to you, Jesus! Come into my heart, cleanse me. Be my Savior and Shepherd. Guide my life. I confess You, Jesus Christ, as my Lord. I thank You that You hear my prayer, and I accept Your salvation by faith. Thank You, my Savior, for accepting me as I am. Amen.
Does God forgive everyone?
The Apostle Paul emphasizes that an unrepentant heart heaps wrath on the head of the sinner. (Rom.2:5-6)
The devil will do his best to prevent repentance, showing that sin is not so terrible, there is nothing to be ashamed of and everything will pass by itself.
In repentance, Christians must not only mentally repent of the sin committed, but at the same time forgive the people who contributed to the wicked transgressions.
Repentance in the temple
Hardened sinners rob themselves, putting an end to their forgiveness due to many atrocities. Some of them fall into despair and despondency, which is a lack of trust in the Creator and a new sin.
Fallen people do not even realize how merciful the Father is in Heaven, who is ready to accept into His arms everyone who repents of their sins. The Lord forgives every sin for which a person sincerely repents.
Another segment of people who rarely repent are self-righteous Christians. They have already put crowns of holiness on their heads, forgetting the words of Jesus that everyone on earth is sinners.
In the social sphere there is no such word as “repentance”; a person who has committed a bad act repents and asks for forgiveness. But here there is no presence of the Holy Spirit and no awareness of one’s sin before God. From the point of view of Orthodoxy, repentance and repentance have the same meaning, when a sinner not only realizes his sin, he begins to hate it.
In the event of deception, theft, murder, a fallen Christian steps over pride, shame, cowardice and asks for forgiveness from those who suffered, tries to compensate for the losses, and only then goes to confession and brings his sin before the throne of the Creator.
Jesus knows the fallen nature of this world, but man, created in the image and likeness of the Creator, is called to live in the Kingdom of peace, peace, prosperity in love and health already on earth. The Kingdom of Heaven descends to earth by the will of God, by His grace, for those Orthodox believers who realize the power of repentance and confession.
For an unbaptized person there is no repentance in Orthodoxy, there is no God, the gates of grace do not open. Just as it is difficult for a sick person to recover from a terrible disease without the help of doctors, so it is impossible for an unbeliever to know the mercy and forgiveness of the Almighty without Orthodox baptism.
Those people to whom the grace of understanding Confession and Communion is not open, say that Orthodox Christians live well, repent and sin, and repent again.
Important! During repentance, which in Greek means change, the fear of God comes, and a feeling of one’s uncleanness before God comes. Any one causes self-loathing and a desire to quickly cleanse oneself in the face of the Creator.
Having sincerely repented, people will never return to their previous sin; they constantly control their words, emotions, and actions, conforming them with the commandments of the Lord.
Forgiveness in Christianity
There is no need to delude yourself, sometimes even the most faithful children of the Creator fall morally, mentally, physically, but they always have God’s hand nearby, blessed help that comes through repentance and confession.
Why repent if God knows all man's sins?
The Creator created on earth not robots, but people who have feelings, emotions, spirit, soul and body. The Almighty sees all the sins of man, committed not according to His will, but with the complicity of demons.
Until a person repents, the devil has power over him; the Creator does not touch an unclean, sinful soul.
Only by the will of an Orthodox believer does the Savior grant him salvation and grace in earthly life, but for this a person needs to confess his sins, cleanse himself of them, like weeds, and repent. Sincere repentance is heard by God and the devil, in front of whom all doors are slammed and he is deprived of all rights to the once repentant sinner, and after repentance - to the righteous.
Is there repentance after death
In his message to people, Jesus Himself gives the answer to the question of whether a person can be freed from the consequences of fallen life after death. The answer is terrible and categorical for sinners: “No!”
Read carefully the letters to Hebrews, Galatians, and Corinthians! In each Gospel, the apostles convey the words of Christ that what a person sows, that he also reaps. The law of sowing and reaping says that the sinner will reap 30, 60 and 100 times more than he sows. (Galatians 6)
The Apostle Luke clearly writes that without repentance it is impossible to see the Kingdom of God. (Luke 3)
There, Matthew conveys the words of the Savior that only by bearing worthy fruit of repentance can one be saved. (Matthew 3:8)
A stubborn, unrepentant heart gathers the fruits of wrath on the day of Judgment, which no mortal born on earth will escape. This terrible truth is confirmed by John of Kronstadt, saying that, having died, leaving earthly life, the sinner is no longer given the opportunity to change something, he goes to hell.
Important! After death there is no repentance, confession and communion of the Holy Blood of Jesus, which is the entrance ticket to heaven for true believers, God-fearing Christians.
Fallen people living on earth without the grace of God do not even understand how they are robbing their souls. A person cannot help but understand that he is sinning, self-justification of his actions does not bring consolation, sin, like a splinter, will spoil the enjoyment of worldly pleasures.
Drowning in self-love and pride, sinners plunge deeper and deeper into the swamp of voluptuousness, not realizing that the hour of Judgment will come. It will be too late.
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh on repentance
On the fifth Sunday of Great Lent, dedicated to the Venerable Mary of Egypt, the Church reaches the fullness of repentance. Before turning to the Lord, the Monk Mary led a “free” lifestyle so familiar to our contemporaries - from a very young age. Only if earlier such a life was condemned, now more and more often they boast about this shame - they propagate this cesspool, this sinful stench, as something beautiful. Someone really wants to turn all the girls into Marys of Egypt, only without repentance. The temptation to commit criminal sin begins in early childhood. The press reports on beauty contests for children, almost from preschool age, with the same enthusiasm as about competitions for young musicians or artists.
This song of the zealots of unlimited freedom is stuck in everyone’s ears: “We must not lag behind the West!” Everyone knows how far the West has gone in this regard. And it should also be known what consequences this inevitably led to in the West. When a state indulges in corruption, it is not interested in preserving itself as a state. This and non-believers all understand that the core of the state is the family, and with the disintegration of the family, with the destruction of morality, social chaos sets in. The power of money, the root of all evil, the triumph of mammon, the devil - everything is bought and sold. Here is a typical interview with a young porn star in the 90s of the last century: “Do you enjoy your work?” “I get the greatest pleasure when I receive money.”
It is not enough for Satan to corrupt; the main thing is to prevent repentance. To achieve this, an atmosphere of mockery of chastity, virginity, fidelity in marriage, and repentance is created in society. And above all, for this purpose, a fierce attack on the Church is being carried out in well-known media. They couldn’t burn it down, they couldn’t destroy it from the inside—now they’re trying to mix it with dirt. What should the Church do? Our duty is to raise our voice, sound the alarm, calling on the shame and conscience of all who want to preserve their human dignity, declaring a loud protest. Uncertainty and reticence are inappropriate here. The Church must speak about the threat to humanity in direct and clear language, as the Bible does. For this is how the disease of degeneration of nations occurs, which is reflected in the third and fourth generations, right up to genetic distortions. Here is an attempt on the existence of the entire world, turning into Sodom and Gomorrah, and here is eternal death, the broad path to hell, as Scripture says.
The Church cannot remain indifferent to what is happening in the outside world, if only because it concerns its own children. If from the very beginning of the so-called “perestroika” we had adequately responded to the satanic propaganda of depravity, much would be different today. And today we must remind everyone who hopes to reconcile the incompatible, and everyone who dares to cross the threshold of an Orthodox church, about the Hundredth Rule of the VI Ecumenical Council, which is more relevant than ever: “Whoever is engaged in the production of indecent images shall be excommunicated from the Church.” They are outside the Church, they are deprived of her prayer, her intercession, her Divine power. Whenever they touch its shrines, they do so as a judgment and condemnation. This is what this Hundredth Rule says.
And we also know that the sin of fornication, according to the understanding of the Church, stands next to murder and idolatry, and deprives one of communion for many years. If, in these abnormal times, we are unable to strictly fulfill the canons of the holy fathers, which no one has ever abolished, and cannot abolish, because they are dictated by love, may your soul not be scorched, and may you know by the grace of God what you you lose by committing this sin - all this can only mean one thing: the depth of repentance and the fruits of repentance must make up for the lack of its duration.
We remember from the life of the Venerable Mary of Egypt how she was unable to enter the temple because of uncleanness: some incomprehensible force prevented her. And this man confidently enters the temple, and nothing stops him, despite all his no less terrible sins. However, because he enters without repentance, it is painful for him to stand at the service, and he leaves without waiting for the end, and soon stops going to church altogether - he literally cannot enter it. The same ancient miracle, only in a different sad version, is repeated again.
Without a clear and deep distinction between good and evil, how will our Fast be St. Mary's? How can a soul, like a sinful wife who loved much, bring tears for herself, for the Lord, and for everyone for whose sake the Lord came to suffer?
Archpriest Alexander Shargunov, rector of the Church of St. Nicholas in Pyzhi, member of the Union of Writers of Russia
Heartfelt contrition for one’s sins and the determination not to repeat them are great fruits, and not at all the first steps of repentance. Ideally, our whole life should be repentance. Everyone remembers the apostolic commandment: “ Pray without ceasing"(Thess. 5:17). This means repentance. Jesus Prayer - " Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner" - prayer of repentance.We sin, due to our weakness, continuously, if not in deed, then in thought. And they must repent continuously. Therefore, I do not believe that parishioners should be forced to constantly list everyday sins in confession. A person feels that he needs the prayerful support of a priest - he can list them; confession in our church is performed every day in the morning and evening.
But strictly speaking, confession is a sacrament that reunites a person with the Church. Committing a grave sin, a person falls away from the Church, and at confession he returns to the Church through the sacrament and is accepted back into Eucharistic communion. Therefore, I do not insist that people who regularly receive communion go to confession before each communion and list their daily sins there.
The task of a Christian is not to follow the rules, but to constantly be in prayerful unity with God. For our weakness this means self-reproach. Not in despair and self-remorse, but in self-reproach, that is, awareness and recognition of one’s sinfulness and at the same time faith in the mercy of God. That is, in the state that is expressed both in the Jesus Prayer and in the publican’s prayer.
And the saints did not immediately feel this way. Abba Dorotheos confessed to his teachers Barsanuphius the Great and John the Prophet: I look at my life and understand that I am worthy of eternal torment, I know that I am worse than all people, but I don’t feel it in my heart. And the elders answered him that he was on the right path. We grow to a heartfelt understanding of what we really are all our lives - this is the spiritual path.
I believe that it is wrong to say “I am the sinner of all people” if you do not feel it. Unfortunately, I myself don’t feel this way, although I understand that it is necessary. But still, we believers are aware of our sins. Wait until a miracle happens and we feel them the way the saints felt? You can't wait. Therefore, we will pray now as best we can.
I say: “Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me,” but there is no contrition in my heart. Well, well... I will reproach myself with faith that if I work on my soul and adhere to church fellowship, the Lord will not leave me. I will pray with attention, according to the advice of St. John Climacus, keeping my mind in the words of prayer. If this is not possible, I will pray with my eyes and lips, albeit with a cold heart, absent-mindedly, but in the hope that even such small work will help me get closer to God. As the holy fathers said, it is better to eat bread with ashes than to eat nothing.
O. Konstantin Ostrovsky
"Save me, God!". Thank you for visiting our website, before you start studying the information, please subscribe to our Orthodox community on Instagram Lord, Save and Preserve † - https://www.instagram.com/spasi.gospodi/. The community has more than 60,000 subscribers.
There are many of us like-minded people and we are growing quickly, we post prayers, sayings of saints, prayer requests, and timely post useful information about holidays and Orthodox events... Subscribe. Guardian Angel to you!
There is no need to talk about how important the sacrament of repentance is, because without it the entire Orthodox life is simply impossible, even its beginning cannot do without repentance. Therefore, a believing Christian constantly returns to repentance, but not only mentally, but necessarily through his deeds, otherwise it turns out that human faith is dead without works.
Repentance and repentance, what's the difference?
Such a confession refers to one of the seven existing Sacraments in the Orthodox Christian religion and which was established by the Lord God himself. That is, this sacrament represents comprehension of one’s sinful acts, regret for what one has done and firmness in the intention not to commit such a thing in the future; correction of committed sins not only in thought, but also in deed.
Let's figure out what repentance is and what are the differences between repentance and confession.
Repentance is a kind of awareness of sinfulness and one’s experiences associated with such comprehension. That is, this is not only regret about committed actions that do not correspond to existing moral standards and written commandments, but something more - repentance or, in other words, disapproval of everything that has been done. Therefore, for such a ritual to be feasible, it is necessary to sincerely and wholeheartedly repent and have a firm desire to change your life.
Repentance and confession, what is the difference? The difference lies in the fact that a person performs this rite every second, repenting in a prayer service or calling on the Lord at home, as well as in church, but without going to the priest for confession. Confession consists in the fact that, having come to the Temple to the clergyman, the believer begins to talk about his sinful acts before him, but at the same time pronouncing these sins to the Almighty.
Holy Fathers on Repentance
Saint Isaac the Syrian: “What is repentance? Leaving the past and all sorrows about it, i.e. repentance is the gate of good deeds, opening them to those who seek well. Through such gates, Orthodox Christians enter into the Lord’s grace, and apart from this exit, mercy cannot be found”;
Saint Silouan of Athos: “This is a sign of pardon for sins: since you disliked sin, then the Almighty will be able to forgive sinful acts”;
Saint Thalassius: “Pardon for sins is freedom from passions, and those who do not gain freedom from them will not know forgiveness.”
Turning to the vast pastoral experience of the Christian Church, it should be noted that such repentance in Orthodoxy occurs in three stages, that is:
- immediately with the awareness of the sinful act committed;
- at the end of the day;
- at confession.
The first time a person repents is during the period when he understands that he has committed a sin, and even if the understanding of the sin came immediately after he committed it. However, it should be remembered that there is no point in delaying turning to the Almighty in a repentant prayer service (or asking a person for mercy in cases where a believer has committed a sinful act against his neighbor).
But at the same time, it would be a big mistake to postpone repentance until later, justifying it by saying that now is not the most convenient time, etc. A sinful act is akin to an illness, and the sooner you start treating it, the more successfully and quickly it will go away, therefore, the sooner you confess, the less harm the sin will cause, because It is dangerous to be in sin.
At the end of the day, a person mentally remembers all the events that happened and again comes to his sin. I’ll think about it a little (that is, what was the reason, what the consequences will be and how to deal with all this), asks the Almighty for mercy. Such an evening ritual can help a Christian believer establish a more attentive Orthodox life.
During the Sacrament, before the invisible Lord God, the believer asks for forgiveness, and the clergyman says a prayer of permission, as if testifying to the Almighty the repentance of the sin of the Orthodox believer.
These are the prayer words one should repent of what they have done:
Heavenly Father! I come to You in prayer, aware of all my sinfulness. I believe Your Word. I believe that You accept everyone who comes to You. Lord, forgive all my sins, be merciful to me. I don't want to live my old life. I want to belong to you, Jesus! Come into my heart, cleanse me. Be my Savior and Shepherd. Guide my life. I confess You, Jesus Christ, as my Lord. I thank You that You hear my prayer, and I accept Your salvation by faith. Thank You, my Savior, for accepting me as I am. Amen.
After the priest has repented of his sins and the corresponding prayer has been read, the Christian believer, at the end of the ritual, must put his lips to the Cross and the Gospel.
May the Lord bless you!
You will also be interested in watching a video about how to repent correctly in confession:
