Rite of General Confession

Compiled by Archbishop Sergius (Golubtsov, †1982)

The sacrament of holy repentance has the main goal of awakening our spiritual consciousness, opening our eyes to ourselves, coming to our senses, deeply understanding in what a destructive state our soul is, how necessary it is to seek salvation from God, to ask tearfully and contritely for forgiveness of our countless sins before Him. The Lord Jesus Christ expects from us a most sincere awareness of our deviations from His holy will and a humble appeal to Him as unworthy of His servants, who have sinned many and offended His Divine love for us. We need to remember and deeply believe in the infinite mercy of God, which stretches out its arms to every sinner who converts. There is no sin that God, in His ineffable mercy, would not forgive a person who has shown sincere repentance for his sins, a firm determination to correct his life and not to return to his former sins. Approaching confession, let us pray to God that His almighty help would open the doors of repentance to us, reconcile and unite us with Himself, and grant us the Holy Spirit for a new and renewed life. Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ! As we prepare to approach the great sacrament of holy confession, looking at God's mercy, let us ask ourselves whether we have shown mercy to our neighbors, whether we have been reconciled with everyone, whether we do not have enmity in our hearts against anyone, remembering the cherished words of the Holy Gospel: "If ye forgive a man their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you" (Matt. 6:14). This is the condition that we must understand and observe in the salvific work of holy repentance. Human life is so diverse, so mysterious is the depth of our soul, that it is difficult even to enumerate all the sins and sins that we commit. Therefore, when approaching the sacrament of holy confession, it is useful to remind oneself of the main violations of the moral law of the Holy Gospel. Let us carefully examine our conscience and repent of our sins before the Lord God. We, many sinners, confess to the Lord God Almighty, glorified and worshipped in the Holy Trinity the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and to you, honorable father, all our sins, voluntary and involuntary, committed in word, or deed, or thought. We sinned by not keeping the vows we gave at baptism, but in everything we lied and transgressed, and made ourselves useless before the face of God.

We have sinned by disobedience to the actions of God's providence, by a stubborn desire for everything to be our way, by pleasing people, by a partial love for creatures and things. They did not try to know the will of God, they did not have reverence for God, fear of Him, hope in Him, zeal for His glory, for He is glorified by a pure heart. We have sinned by ingratitude to the Lord God for all His great and unceasing blessings, which are poured out in abundance on each of us and on the entire human race as a whole, by not remembering them, by murmuring against God, by faint-heartedness, despondency, hardness of our hearts, lack of love for Him and failure to fulfill His holy will. They have sinned by enslaving themselves to passions: voluptuousness, covetousness, pride, laziness, self-love, vanity, ambition, covetousness, gluttony, delicacy, secret eating, gluttony, drunkenness, addiction to games, spectacles and amusements. They have sinned by godliness, by not fulfilling vows, by forcing others to worship and oaths, by not reverence for holy things, by blasphemy against God, against the saints, against every holy thing, by blasphemy, by calling upon the name of God in vain, in evil deeds, desires, and thoughts.

They sinned by negligence in prayer, by abandoning the reading of the Holy Gospel, the Psalter and other Divine books, the teachings of the Holy Fathers. They have sinned by forgetting sins at confession, by self-justification in them and diminishing their gravity, by concealing sins, by repentance without heartfelt contrition; they did not make efforts to properly prepare for communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, not having been reconciled with their neighbors, they came to confession and in such a sinful state dared to approach Communion. They sinned by breaking the fasts and not keeping the fast days - Wednesdays and Fridays, which are equated with the days of Great Lent, as days of remembrance of the sufferings of Christ. They sinned by intemperance in food and drink, by carelessly and irreverently making the sign of the cross. They sinned by disobedience to superiors and elders, self-will, self-will, self-justification, laziness to work and unscrupulous performance of entrusted tasks. They sinned by disrespecting their parents, abandoning prayer for them, disrespecting their elders in age, impudence, willfulness and disobedience, rudeness, stubbornness. They sinned by the lack of Christian love for one's neighbor, impatience, resentment, irritability, anger, infliction of harm on one's neighbor, fights and quarrels, intransigence, enmity, retribution of evil for evil, unforgiveness of offenses, rancor, jealousy, envy, ill-will, vindictiveness, condemnation, slander, covetousness. They sinned by lack of mercy to the poor, they did not have compassion for the sick and the crippled; sinned by avarice, greed, extravagance, covetousness, infidelity, injustice, hardness of heart. They have sinned by deceit towards their neighbors, deceit, insincerity in their treatment of them, suspicion, double-mindedness, gossip, ridicule, witticisms, lies, hypocritical treatment of others and flattery, and man-pleasing. They sinned by forgetting about the future eternal life, by not remembering their death and the Last Judgment, and by an unreasonable, biased attachment to earthly life and its pleasures and affairs. They sinned by intemperance of their tongues, idle talk, idle talk, ridicule, they told jokes; they have sinned by divulging the sins and weaknesses of their neighbors, by seductive behavior, by liberty, and by impudence. They have sinned by intemperance of their spiritual and bodily feelings, partiality, voluptuousness, immodest view of persons of the other sex, free treatment of them, fornication and adultery, various carnal sins, excessive ostentation, the desire to please and seduce others. They sinned by the lack of sincerity, sincerity, simplicity, loyalty, truthfulness, respect, sedateness, caution in words, prudent silence, did not protect and did not protect the honor of others. They sinned by the lack of love, abstinence, chastity, modesty in words and deeds, purity of heart, non-acquisitiveness, mercy and humility. We have sinned in despondency, melancholy, sorrow, sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, lust, impurity, and all our feelings, thoughts, words, desires, and deeds. We also repent of our other sins, which, because of our forgetfulness, we did not remember. We repent that we have angered the Lord our God with all our sins, we sincerely regret this and wish to abstain from our sins in every possible way and to correct ourselves. O Lord our God, with tears we beseech Thee, our Saviour, to help us to be strengthened in our holy intention to live as Christians, and to forgive the sins we have confessed, as the Good and the Lover of mankind. The grave sins not listed here should be told to the spiritual father separately. Sins that have been confessed and absolved earlier should not be named at confession, for they have already been forgiven, but if we repeat them again, then we must repent of them again. It is also necessary to repent of those sins that were forgotten, but are now remembered. Speaking of sins, one should not mention the names of other persons who are accomplices in sin. Such must repent for themselves. Habits for sin are eradicated by prayer, fasting, abstinence, and good deeds.

Stories from the life of ascetics

(Taken from the "Ancient Patericon")

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One brother said to Abba Pimen: "I am troubled by thoughts and do not allow me to think about my sins, but force me to notice only the shortcomings of my brother. Abba Pimen told him about Abba Dioscorus, that he had wept for himself in his cell; and his disciple lived in another cell. When a disciple came to the elder and found him crying, he asked him: "Father! What are you crying about? He answered him, "I weep for my sins, child." - The disciple said to him: "You have no sins, father! But the elder answered him: I assure you, my son! If I could see my sins, then four more people would not be enough to mourn them with me. At the same time, Abba Pimen said: "He is truly a man who has come to know himself" (ch. 3:22).

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Abba Sisoy once said with boldness: "Believe me, for thirty years now I have not prayed to God for my other sins, but, praying, I say to Him: Lord, Jesus Christ, cover me from my tongue! For even to this day I fall, sinning through him (4:47).

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The brother asked the elder: "What should I do, father?" Shameful thoughts kill me. The elder said to him: when a mother wants to wean her child from milk, she puts a bitter sea onion to her nipples. The infant usually falls to the breast to suck milk, but because of bitterness he turns away from it. In the same way, if you wish, put your bitterness on your thoughts. His brother asked him, 'What bitterness is this that I ought to put down?' "Remembrance of death and torment in the future life," said the elder (5:33).

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