Through baptism, a person enters the number of members of the Church - this kingdom of God on earth. In chrismation, he, as a newly-chosen warrior, receives from the Loving Lord spiritual weapons for the spiritual struggle against the evil of the world. It remains only for man to make use of the powers given to him by God both in natural and spiritual birth in order to be a worthy member of the kingdom of God. And to be a worthy member of the Kingdom of God means, in the words of the Saviour Himself, to take upon oneself the cross of Christ and follow it (Matt. 16:24, 10, 38), in other words, a true Christian must acquire for himself the spirit of Christ, become akin to His ideal mood, embody in his life His pure, holy image, so that the whole life of man may be an uninterrupted expression of that ideal of life. which is given in the Gospel. The unity between the Christian and Christ must be, in the words of the Saviour, as close as exists between the branch and the vine (John 15). And just as a branch cannot bear fruit and remain alive unless it is on the vine and is nourished by its juices, so a Christian does not have true life if his spirit is guided not by the ideals of the eternal truth of the Gospel, but by the interests of the world, which, according to the Apostle, "lies in evil" (1 John 5:16). The vital expression of a truly Christian disposition is therefore love, the feeling of striving for unity with God as the Heavenly Father, and with one's neighbors as brothers in faith, members of one great family – the Kingdom of God; the fruit of love is life according to the Gospel (John 15:9-10; 14:21,23; John 5:3; 3:18). But love for God contradicts itself in man's habitual or acquired love for the earth with its deceptive but accessible blessings, love for one's neighbor is in contradiction with feelings of egoism, the ideals of the Gospel do not agree with the interests of the flesh. The Lord did not create new external conditions of life for the Christian, so as not to do violence to nature, nor did He destroy the power of the devil over the earth and mankind, since the devil is a free and rational being. The Lord wanted love and goodness to be not a mechanical act of necessity, but a free and conscious choice of a Christian man regenerated from sin and sanctified by the grace of the Holy Spirit. And therefore, just as he who is born healthy in the body is not immune from bodily diseases due to the contamination of the air he breathes with diseased microbes, so he who is reborn in spirit cannot resist falling in the atmosphere of evil surrounding him. The possibility of falling is all the more understandable for the one who has been reborn by the Holy Spirit, since the bearing of the cross of Christ, in comparison with the perceptible sweetness of sin for a person who has not grown strong in good, is accompanied by a painful struggle with his lusts, sufferings, which the Saviour compares to the torments of a woman at the birth of a child (John 16:20, 22). A person, even if he has risen to a certain level of virtue, as the frank depiction of the life of the ascetics attests to us, sometimes falls under the weight of the cross of Christ and delights in sin, all the more so the possibility of manifold falls for a Christian with less faith and weaker love for Christ. Sin gradually subordinates the Christian into slavery and often becomes the ruling principle of life. A person often, like a lazy slave of a parable, buries the talent given to him in the ground and then calms down, but a God-like conscience, like a householder, from time to time comes into its own and demands an account in which a person begins to clearly realize the obligation he has assumed as a Christian before God at baptism and to feel the full depth of responsibility "for the contempt of the Spirit of grace." received in chrismation. With this consciousness there is repentance for what has been done and a desire to take the path of good again, and the clearer a person's faith and the stronger the desire for love for God, the stronger and more painful the repentance, but this repentance would naturally turn into despair if the Christian did not have this time, as at the moment of the first conversion to Christ, hope for the all-forgiving Love of God, and if the Church, as a mother, had not assured him of the possibility of receiving forgiveness through the sacrament of repentance.

Repentance is a sacrament in which the believer, during the oral confession of his sins before the priest, receives through him an invisible absolution of sins from Jesus Christ Himself.190

Through the sacrament of repentance in the Church, we are reconciled to God after we have violated communion with Him by our sins. Church Tradition calls repentance the renewal of baptism or the restoration of that deep intimate life with God which is given to people in the main Christian sacraments.

Repentance was established in the New Testament Church by its Founder and Head Himself, Jesus Christ. At first, Christ the Savior spoke about this sacrament twice, the first time when He said to the Apostle Peter, who confessed Him on behalf of all the Apostles to be the Son of God: "And I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matt. 16.19.); and on another occasion, when He testified before all the Apostles as its leaders: "Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt. 18:18). After His resurrection from the dead, the Lord did indeed give the Apostles the promised gift. Appearing on the very first day after His resurrection to His disciples, gathered together, the Lord solemnly said to them: "Peace be unto you! As the Father sent me, so do I send you. And when he had said this, he breathed, and said to them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit. To whom you forgive sins, they will be forgiven; on whom you leave, they will remain." (John 20:21-23).

"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew 3:2) – with these words of John the Baptist Jesus Christ began His preaching (Matthew 4:17). The Greek word metanoia ("repentance") means "change of mind." Christ's preaching became a call for a radical change in the way of thinking and way of life, the renewal of the mind and feelings, the rejection of sinful deeds and thoughts, and the transformation of man. A synonym for repentance is the word conversion, which is often found in the Bible: "Turn every man from his evil way, and straighten out your ways and your deeds" (Jeremiah 18:11). Conversion is a repulsion to a sinful life and a return to Him from Whom we have departed, from Whom we have fallen away, from Whom we have turned away. A repentant person is like the prodigal son from the Gospel parable (Luke 15:11-24): living in sin, he moves away from God, but after many adversities, having "come to himself", he decides to return to the Father. Repentance begins with repentance and conversion ("having come to one's senses"), which grow into determination ("I will arise, I will go") and ends with a return to the Father ("I arose and went"), confession of sins ("I have sinned"), forgiveness from God ("bring a better garment"), adoption ("this is my son"), and spiritual resurrection ("he was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found").

The sacrament of repentance, also called confession, was established by the Church in ancient times. In Acts it is said that "many of them that believed came (to the apostles), confessing and revealing their works" (Acts 19:18). The Christian life of the former pagans began with confession. Sometimes public confession was practiced in front of the entire community (by the fifth century it disappeared), as well as confession in front of several priests. More often, however, confession was secret. In the Christian tradition, the Church is perceived as a spiritual "hospital", sin as a disease, confession as treatment, the priest as a doctor: "Have you sinned? Enter the church and repent of your sin... Here is a doctor, not a judge; here no one is condemned, but everyone accepts the remission of sins"191 (St. John Chrysostom). In the rite of confession the following words are preserved: "Hearken unto thee, for thou hast come to the hospital, lest thou depart unhealed."192 Sin is a fall, a delusion: confession helps him to rise and come out on the right path.

A Christian is forgiven all sins in Baptism. However, "there is no man who lives, and does not sin" (Psalm 10), and after Baptism he again allows sins to settle in his soul, like dirt and blackness, depriving him of the fullness of life in God, because nothing impure can enter into communion with the Most Pure God. St. The Fathers called repentance "the second baptism," emphasizing its purifying, renewing, and refreshing effect: "Repentance is the renewal of Baptism. Repentance is a covenant with God for the correction of life... Repentance is reconciliation with the Lord through the performance of good deeds, which are the opposite of former sins. Repentance is the cleansing of conscience"193 (St. John Climacus).

At confession, the penitent feels his sinfulness more acutely, and this consciousness contributes to the correction of his life. It is indicative that those who confess rarely or do not confess at all (as a rule, do not feel like sinners at all: "I live like everyone else", "there are worse than me", "I do no evil to anyone", "who is without sin in our times?" – most often you can hear from such people. that just as dust and dirt are seen only where there is light, and not in a dark room, so the sinfulness of man becomes manifest to him as he approaches God, Who is Light, and outside of God there can be no clear vision of sins, because everything is darkened and clouded. Confession is brought to God, and the priest is only a "witness," as it is said in the rite of the sacrament. Why do we need a witness when we can confess to God Himself? The Church, when establishing confession before a priest, undoubtedly took into account the subjective factor: many are not ashamed of God, since they will not see Him, and it is shameful to confess in front of a person, but it is a saving shame that helps to overcome sin. In addition, the priest is a spiritual guide who helps to find the right path to overcome sin. Confession is not limited only to the story of sins, it also involves the advice of a priest, as well as in some cases penance – a punishment or moral prescription for the healing of sin. Before the confession begins, the priest warns that it must be complete; if the penitent hides his sins out of shame or for any other reason, the sacrament is considered invalid: "Do not be ashamed, and do not be afraid, and do not hide anything from me, for you will have a great sin." A person also receives forgiveness at confession in full and complete: "I, an unworthy priest, by His authority given to me, forgive and absolve you from all your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Are forgotten sins forgiven? There is no unequivocal answer to this, although the prayer speaks specifically about the forgiveness of all sins. As a rule, if a person remembers a forgotten sin after confession, he repents of it at the next confession. However, if confession is not too rare, a person does not have time to forget his sins. The priest is endowed by God with the right to declare the forgiveness of sins in the name of God. This power to "bind and loose" passed, as the Church believes, from the apostles to their successors, bishops and priests. Since the communion of the laity at each Liturgy ceased to be the norm and was replaced by the practice of rare or annual communion, the sacrament of confession naturally began to precede communion. In the Russian Church, this custom gradually led to the emergence of the theory according to which the communion of the laity, in contrast to the clergy, is generally impossible without confession. In practice, this leads to the fact that on major holidays hundreds of people line up for confession to take communion, and the confession itself is reduced to three phrases said in a hurry, or only to the reading of the prayer of absolution, which is perceived as "admission" to communion. In this practice, in the opinion of Archpriest. According to A. Schmemann, there is a juridical attitude to the sacrament, when the forgiveness of sins stems not so much from the repentance of a person and the reconciliation with God and reunification with the Church that has occurred as a result of this repentance, but from the power of the priest; the emphasis shifts from repentance to the prayer of absolution, which is perceived as the most important moment of the sacrament.194 In the Greek Church, confession is not connected with communion, which sometimes leads to the opposite extreme: people do not know what confession is at all, and they take communion without clearing their consciences.

The Greek Church also does not know the Russian practice of the so-called "general confession," when, due to a large confluence of people, the priest does not talk to each one individually, but only enumerates the sins aloud, and the faithful answer "repent," or "sinner," or answer nothing; after which a prayer is read and everyone comes "under permission," and sometimes the prayer of absolution is read for everyone at once ("I forgive and absolve you").195 At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, St. John of Kronstadt practiced general confession, but this was done with the special permission of the Holy Synod, and the confession itself was more reminiscent of ancient public confessions than those practiced today. since all those present at the same time named their sins aloud. In post-revolutionary Russia, general confession became widespread due to the lack of churches and priests. Being a forced measure, however, it should not completely replace private confession, the grace-filled and salvific effect of which is known to every believer by experience.

В наше время мир потерял чувство греховности. Вот причина того, что прекрасные начинания для построения лучшего мира остаются тщетными - они наталкиваются на эгоизм, который кроется в душе каждого человека... Когда Бог войдет в сердце человека, Он войдет и в общество. Надо вспомнить призывы людей Божиих, раздававшиеся в веках: "Да отвергнется от своего греха человек нечестивый сердцем"... "Покайтесь... обратитесь..." - восклицал Иоанн Креститель. "Если не покаетесь, все погибнете", - сказал Христос... "Христу надлежало пострадать и воскреснуть", - объяснял Иисус, идя в Еммаус, "и во имя Его будет проповедано покаяние всем народам для отпущения грехов..." "Мы во многом грешим", - говорит Апостол Иаков. "Если говорим, что не имеем греха, самих себя обманываем, и истины нет в нас", - говорил Апостол Иоанн... "Христос нас учит, - говорит Апостол Павел, - отложить ветхого человека в обольстительных похотях и облечься в нового человека, созданного по Богу, в праведности и святости". Надо вновь научить мир повторять слова блудного сына: "Отче, я согрешил против неба и перед тобою"... и слова пророка Давида: "Омой меня, Боже, от беззакония моего... " (Пс. 50).

Всякий грех есть отказ от Божественного света. Для того чтобы увидеть свое зло, надо видеть свет и красоту Божией Правды, которая воссияла более всего в лице Господа Иисуса Христа, в Его Евангелии, а также в святых людях. Поэтому надлежит каяться перед лицом Господа, Которому Отец Небесный отдал весь суд на земле. Суд же состоит в том, что Господь есть Свет, а отвергающий этот Свет сам в себе несет наказание, уходя во тьму.

Всякий грех есть грех против любви, так как Сам Бог есть Любовь. Нарушая закон любви, всякий грех ведет к разъединению с Богом и людьми и, следовательно, является грехом против Церкви. Поэтому согрешающий отпадает от Церкви и должен каяться перед нею. В древности грешник каялся перед всем церковным собранием; теперь же священник один принимает исповедь от лица Господа и Церкви.

Грех заключается не только в отдельных поступках человека, он является постоянной болезнью, которая не допускает человека принимать дар Божественной благодати, то есть лишает его источника истинной жизни. Для искоренения таких грехов, как гордость или эгоизм, требуется постоянное внимание к себе, борьба с дурными помыслами и горькое сожаление о частых оплошностях. Это и есть постоянное покаяние. Чтобы вдыхать благодать, надо постоянно выдыхать перегар греха. Постоянно проверяющий себя и хотя бы на вечерней молитве вспоминающий свой прошедший день успешнее кается во время исповеди. Кто же пренебрегает ежедневной гигиеной души, легко впадает в большие грехи, иногда их даже не замечая. Покаяние, предшествующее исповеди, требует, во-первых, осознания своих грехов; во-вторых, горького сожаления о них и, наконец, решимости исправиться.

Хорошо кающийся находит и причины греховных поступков. Например, он поймет, что неумение переносить и прощать обиды, даже самые ничтожные, объясняется гордостью, с которой и будет бороться.