Православное

The Pastoral aid in the matter of Confession.

A priest very soon will see, serving as a spiritual father in confessions, how little his spiritual children are educated in the understanding of repentance and spiritual making. In the course of time this becomes even more noticeable and with the increasing rate of withdrawal from the Church this gets the threatening size. The simple people still preserve great sincerity and simplicity in confession of their sins from the old times. However, the intelligentsia has long ago stepped aside from the legends of the pious old times. A priest can frequently hear at the confession that a person does not know how to confess, he does not know what is necessary to say. A priest will soon note this problem among his flock. If we add to this the completely anti-Church mood of the society and people around, moreover if there is no possibility to organize preparations for confession under the given conditions, then a priest will see, that his feat of being a spiritual father became exceptionally difficult these days.

What means did the priests have in the old, more favorable times and how could they possibly help to the flock in the matter of the preparation for confession?

In the old times everything helped a priest. The entire way of life of the state, society, big cities, schools, family to a greater or lesser extent contributed to the maintenance of the Church and to strengthening of the traditional foundations. The Church was not separated from the state, used its support, and there was not only any anti-religious propaganda, but vice versa, the state helped, with what it could, to strengthen the church way of life.

Many schools and secondary schools were closed in the first week of the Great Lent and the compulsory fasting of students was held in the churches. There were mass festivals in the Cheesefare week, but with the first peal of the Lenten bell merriment ceased everywhere. In the evenings they tried to go and listen to the canon of St. Andrew of Crete, this most perfect work of the spiritual poetry, finest psychoanalysis and knowledge of the human soul. The images of this canon wake the confessionary mood. In the houses only the lenten food was given. The entire way of life was changed. Theaters were closed; only spiritual concerts were permitted, except the first, fourth and the Passion weeks. All got prepared for confession and taking Communion: from the tsarist court to the last hovel —everybody honored those holy days. The old and young (some — with the skeptical attitude towards this need) went to the church; there came schoolboys, servicemen, officials, merchants and craftsmen.

It is natural that all this made it easier for the penitent to be concentrated on the great sacrament of confession, and for the priests — on the forthcoming exploit of their spiritual service. Almost nothing interfered with the fasting time life. Sometimes they object, that much was compulsory and formal. This has the certain base, but a kind of coercion is the form of the discipline and order and has its psychological side, which cannot be denied in the matter of the religious upbringing.

The fostering care of the church about fasting and confession seemed difficult and unnecessary for some in the youth. But those, who from the childhood were brought up in the atmosphere of piety, tradition and fear of God; who knew the entire beauty of the Lenten custom, the strictness of fasting and happiness of coming out of the fast, who learned to subordinate their desires to the requirements of the church regulations since they were children, know, how much it gives in the matter of self-education and work on oneself. The ones, who did not have any of these early recollections, whose life flew in disorderliness, those are deprived of the richest symphony of the church and spiritual experiences. It would be almost impossible for them to come to Church and plunge into the life of the temple. These people do not usually know how to confess, what to tell to a priest, what the requirements of our traditional asceticism to sinners are and how it can help in the matter of the spiritual revival. Unfortunately, everything said is pitilessly swept by the destructive “progress” and turns of the history. The former way of life cannot be restored.

A pastor is not called and cannot reconstruct the social and state order. But he can influence the family, first the small, and then also the greater, and thus bring up the small church cells, in which children will be suggested the need of the Christian discipline, and perhaps even in the atheist way of life there can be recreated a certain counterweight and the church tradition can be brought up.

A pastor can suggest with his sermons the abstention from the amusements during the fast or, at least, in its certain period. He can appeal to the flock to keep the fast, in what his home must be an example; he must develop the Eucharistic feelings and life.

In the preparatory weeks before the fast a pastor must say the sermons, which explain the need of fasting and salvation character of confession. When the fast begins it is good to preach about the causes of the sin, understanding of the holy fathers of the sin and passions, development of the sin in us. Furthermore, it is necessary to teach about the different types of sin, which are frequently encountered in the community, but that are poorly realized; to reveal the concealed reasons for one or another vice or sinful habit. Some pastors by the brief word of edification before confession help the penitents to understand, what happens at the moment in their souls and mention to those who had come at least the main sins. They should be reminded that in front of the confessionary table it is better not to tell about their everyday plans, to complain of the relatives or to start religious debates, but to say to the people that confession is the moment of admittance of their sins, their enumeration with the repentant mood and desire to fight with them and not to repeat more.

For this purpose the church practice worked out the number of auxiliary measures. It is necessary to recognize that many get so confused at the confession, that cannot say a word, murmur something, justify themselves by the fact that they made nothing terrible, they do not feel their sin..., and this only proves their inability to confess. This is the great responsibility of a confessor to teach people how to confess.

In the childhood many got used to confess their sins with the help of a previously made note. There is nothing bad in this, since it gives the possibility to pre-think their misdeeds and not to forget or conceal anything. People stop doing that with time, but this is a very good method of preparation for confession.

In the old prayer-books there was special daily confession of sins before oneself at the end of the evening rule, where the main types of the sinful states and deeds were mentioned: by “deed, word, thought, overeating, judging, hatred and so forth.” The similar enumerations of sins are very useful for a priest to remember, when he finds it necessary to ask that being confessed these or those questions.

In the old-Russian way of life there were the printed publications, sold in the monasteries and book shops, where the sins were enumerated; they had the name of “general confessions” or “renewals.” The most known is said to be written by St. Dimitrius of Rostov. In many monasteries of old Russia, where frequently they had a small quantity of confessors and large fraternities, such “renewals” were very common and with their help the monks and often arriving pilgrims loved to confess their sins. These “renewals” are widespread at the Holy Athos Mountain up to the present day.

Here is the frequently used text of the confession of sins before a priest from the face of the repentant.

“I confess to the Lord my God and in front of you, reverent father, all my countless transgressions, which I committed up to the present day and hour. Daily and hourly I sin with ingratitude to God for His great and countless good deeds and care about me, a sinner.

I have sinned by indifference to God, by non-following of God’s commandments, feasts, fasts, praying rules and other church established canons, by contempt and deviation from the help to the holy Temple and those in need. I have sinned by the false shame to show myself a Christian, by absent-mindedness during the prayer, the negligent making of the cross sign, by missing divine services and by carelessness. I have sinned by the insincerity at confession, by inconsideration to divine services, sermons, to the reading of spiritual books and negligence to salvation. I have sinned by doubts about the faith, by the superstitious prejudices, visiting fortune tellers, extrasensories, sorcerers, by guess-work and by the game of chances. I have sinned by bitterness, contradiction, complaints, willfulness, reproaches, evil words, lie and laughter. I have sinned by the idle talk, judgment, flattery, disobedience, by the insult of the neighbor, swearing, disrespect to the parents, negligence about the needs of the family, not bringing up the children in the law of God. I have sinned by dreaming, reveling in sinful thoughts, passionate glances, masturbation, by tempting behavior, the breach of chastity, and violation of the conjugal faithfulness, indecent behavior and lechery. I have sinned by gloomy thoughts, despondency, idleness, desperation, thoughts about suicide and complaints. I have sinned by slyness, self-interest, fraud, ill temper, offences, rashness, perfidy, irreconcilability, by the retention of debts, stealing and stinginess. I have sinned by pride, vanity, self-praising, hostility, ambition, grudges, hatred, discords, intrigues, swearing and simulation. I have sinned by sarcasm, vengeance, by the use of stimulants, by smoking and drunkenness. I have sinned by buying of unnecessary things, greediness, mercilessness, envy, anger, slander, impudence, carelessness and irritability. I have sinned by gluttony, generally by excesses in drinks and food, laziness, by the useless expenditure of time before the television set, watching vulgar films and listening to the violent and exciting music. I have sinned by deed, word, thought, sight, hearing, sense of smell, taste, touch — by all my spiritual and bodily feelings.

I repent all my sins and appeal for forgiveness. (Have not you made any other sin, which burdens the conscience and is shameful to be mentioned?). Moreover, I repent and ask for forgiveness of the sins that I did not confess because of my forgetfulness.

Pardon and absolve me, reverent father, and bless to partake the Holy and Life-giving Christ Gifts, for the remission of sins and for eternal life. Amen.”
The good means for help to the penitent is reading of the spiritual literature, like: “The Philocalia,” “The Ladder,” Abba Doropheus, “The Paterics” and other monuments of the ascetic writings. However, much of this must be recommended with precaution, since it is “to much hard food” for the novices, the people, who never lived the church life. Therefore a pastor must be very reasonable not to repel yet weak people with too severe requirements, given in the mentioned books. In the cloister custom “The Ladder” and “The Philocalia” are not given to any young monk, since they contain thoughts and requirements too strict for the unstable man. Such increased level can cause a feeling of hopelessness, immoderate severity, mercilessness, etc. in a young person, and it easily leads to loosing interest to this type of literature.

Therefore it is very good to begin from the works of bishop Theophan the Recluse, St. Tikhon of Zadon, from the letters of Ambrose of Optina Hermitage. It is possible to advise to read St. Ignatius Bryanchaninov or Archbishop Plato of Costroma, or “The questions for the Repentant” of the exarches of Georgia Iona. These books are to a considerable degree useful for a confessor himself, since they teach him, on what he should be focused specially, while preparing for the accomplishment of the sacrament of confession. The only external deficiency of all these books can be the old-fashioned language and manner of writing. But this can be overcome, since the internal value of these works greatly exceeds this secondary drawback.

Speaking about the similar kind of books we finally focus attention on the remarkable “Confession” of Metr. Anthony Krapovitsky, which presents this question to a degree, equally interesting for both the confessor and the repentant. It introduces the number of questions on the asceticism and explains by simple, literary and very lively language that, what any orthodox person should know about the preparation for confession (Published in Warsaw in 1928).

Sins against God and the Church.

How scholastic the division of sins in the manuals on the moral theology into the sins against God, neighbor, society, family, etc. It might be, we saw, that holy fathers know the other division: to passions or sly thoughts; and for the more convenient enumeration of sins, and confession it is necessary to single out the special group — the “sins against God and the Church.”

They are very numerous, covering the whole network of fine spiritual states, from the most simple to the most hidden ones and, as it seems at the first glance, innocent. Briefly it is possible to bring these sins together to the following:

1) Unbelief; 2) skepticism (weak faith) 3) superstition, 4) blasphemy and swearing, 5) the absence of praying habit and church life, 6) spiritual delusion (prelest).
Unbelief. Hardly a convinced atheist will come for confession, and even if he comes, then in order to conduct senseless debates or rather to laugh over the sacrament and a priest. Metr. Anthony advises (“The Confession,” p. 22-23), if these conversations are not serious, then to send him away. But if only the arrived will reveal the least desire to find in a priest support in his difficult moral state, a confessor must with the entire carefulness, tolerance of compassionate love, meet him half-way and have a talk with him right there, by the lectern, or, if the circumstances do not let doing that, to appoint the time for the special conversation at home.

Very frequently in such cases the matter is not at all in the atheism or struggling against God, but in the certain weakening of faith, in the coming doubts, fluctuations in the religious convictions. Here a priest must remember that doubts themselves already prove the presence of the certain, at least minimum faith. With the complete absence of faith, there cannot be any doubts. It is useful for a confessor to recall about the “saving disbelief of Thomas” that is glorified by the Church in the chants.

Revealing the genesis of such doubts or the loss of faith, about which the person says, it is necessary to try to find the reason for the happened change. It can be the consequence of age, of the period of storm and impulses, when generally everything is being doubted and the young mind rises against all the authorities and traditions; it can be the influence of bad conversations with people, who digressed from the faith and divert the others from it; it can be the consequence of different occult and theosophical influences; it can also be, that the loss of faith occurred with the loss of the carnal innocence, with the carnal downfall. On this latter insists Metr. Anthony (“The Confession”). It is interesting that another moralist of the opposite direction, Tolstoy, explained the presence of religious doubts in the same way.

Only a thorough, prolonged and patient conversation of a priest with the doubting person can be of help here. This conversation must be of the apologetic nature, substantiated scientifically and philosophically, but not with the aid of the obsolete seminary textbooks with little arguments, with the references only to the lives of saints and the miracles beside the relics of the obsequious men. Relics, saints, obsequious men and the like cannot be any argument for the people, who strayed among the different theorists and modern philosophers. Here serious apologetics is necessary; one should not fear the problems, and the present philosophy. It is necessary to approach this type of questions fearlessly, since the Orthodoxy has nothing to be afraid of. But for this it is necessary to be, first of all, a pastor, who is clever, educated, deeply believing, afraid of no questions, but ready to bombard the collocutor with questions and to put him in a spot. It is very important to recommend the corresponding literature as for example: “The Sense of Life” by E. Trubetskoy, the books of Vl.Solovyev, Frank, Lossky, Berdyaev (the apologetic ones) and many others.

Weak faith. This sin is much less sharp, but more sticking. The worst atheists and anti-theists are not so many in the world. If we take a better look at the soul of so-called atheists, then it is not difficult to find that in the essence they are not atheists at all, but “those strayed among three pines,” who, not having thought enough, yielded to somebody’s influence, repeat the memorized phrases, difficult to understand expressions, only in order to show their imaginary erudition.

As far as having weak faith is concerned, very many sin with it, and it is harder to get rid of it. Here the apologetic conversations will not help much. A certain effort of will, work on oneself is necessary here. If in the consciousness of some there is something that is called atheism, then this, so to say “atheism” is theoretical, it is the negation of existence of God by the mind. But together with weak faith the practical atheism is easily revealed. The person does not deny the existence of God in the consciousness, but with his life and behavior contradicts the ostensible existence of faith in him. He not only easily doubts the omnipotence of God, His providence and mercy, but with his deeds and structure of his life he contradicts to that what his mouth preaches. His life is in contradiction with the Gospel. He does not want to go deeply into the truths of faith, to follow the commandment of the Lord: “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent (John 17:3). He fears theological discussions, and the dogmatic life of the church repulses him, since this can shake that little he possesses, shake his naive faith in some minimum of religious truths, by which he limited his flat theological world view.

This person wants to make Christianity primitive by all means, like faith of simpletons, referring (very unsuccessfully) to the example of the apostles-fishermen and forgetting the most educated Paul, martyr Justin the Philosopher, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, St. Athanasius and the great Cappadocians, who defended the faith at the councils, deepened the treasures of theology and piety. Such a skeptic would want to represent the Christianity as an everyday religion, as the Old Faith protection of the ancient piety and so on. He has nothing in common with the problems of the present. He does not realize the fact that the history went forward, that the Christianity undergoes attacks from the side of materialism, modernism, pseudoscience, theosophy, occult doctrines, etc. He is frightened with everything what can destroy his religious carelessness and the unstable building of his weak faith. Such terrible for him expressions, as “the history of religion, criticism of biblical text, philosophical analysis of the Gospel, religious philosophy” etc., sound like unbearable blasphemy. He tries to escape to the desert of his intellectual ignorance.

Patiently, but with little hope for success, a priest has to work a lot with these weak and cowardly skeptics.

Superstitions. This sin is especially spread and difficulty eradicable. It so easily gets along together with, it would seem, strong faith and church habits, that usually they pay no attention to it, treating all its manifestations as the normal way of things. It is possible to explain it by the remnants of heathen beliefs, which all nations have, what is like double faith for a Christian. Superstition hides in the form of different signs, belief in the mythical creatures (domovoi — the house ghost, leshy — the forest ghost, mermaid, etc.), belief in happy and unhappy days and numbers. It is possible to find the man who is educated, civilized, even the member of the church, but does not dare to go to a trip either to begin any business on the 13^th of any month, or to sit down at table, where the invited are 13; or believing in the black cat, the hare crossing the road, the chimney-sweeper, in the inevitability of misfortune with encounters with a burial procession or with a priest, etc. These people, which often protest against different religious rites and are dissatisfied by the strictness of the church orders, themselves believe in the guess-works, predictions, horoscopes, into their own and other people’ dreams. It is probable that they in their time gave tribute to theosophy, occultism, spiritism, magic and so forth and it can be that till the present day are not yet free from that fascination.

Speaking about these latter, it is necessary to say that it is rare that any sin leaves so many indelible traces in people, except the participation in the theosophical movements and practicing occultism. Some painful mark remains on the face, as if the burden of the never repented sin; and the eyes acquire some unhealthy reflection; the main thing, the soul becomes distorted for life. Those, taken the mouthful of the poison of occultism and theosophy or especially fashionable Steinerian anthroposophical poison almost always remain with immured religious consciousness. As the loss of innocence, or excesses in drinking, these studies pervert and spoil the man. These secret studies and their different theories about “karma,” souls’ rebirth, yoga forever make the man the slave of these prejudices. For such people “there is no religion higher than the truth,” and the Christianity is only one of other religions, more precisely, the syncretism of different eastern studies. Rarely anyone, from those who were in the chains of theosophy and occultism, could be freed from them once and forever. The damage will remain for life. These people come for confession, but they would not confess to a priest their adherence to these studies; however, sooner or later the consequences of these spiritual bends will appear in the soul of such unhappy.

Here a priest should possess great erudition and education, since the occultists and theosophists themselves are extremely well-read and armed by different information in the majority of cases. It is necessary to fight with them with truly scientific means, religious-philosophical facts, arguments of psychology and psychoanalysis, but not with the legends or school apology.

To all discussions about the “fate,” about that what is supposed to be, phrases like “this is my fate,” etc., it is necessary to contradict with the sensible thoughts about the free will, moral responsibility, value of personality in the man. One should remember that occultism and theosophy, according to successful expression of Berdyaev, are never capable of revealing the secrets of existence, but they only attempt to give away some secrets. It is necessary to force the man to think over his freedom from the determinacy of natural laws, social conditionality, from the servitude of pseudo-authorities of different spiritual leaders and so forth.

Blasphemy and swearing frequently get along in the people, who consider themselves to be believers and orthodox. Here are involved, first of all, the mockeries on the difficult to understand and therefore seemingly unnecessary and obsolete church customs; neglecting of the fact that the average man loves to call “a rite”; blasphemous expressions about the sacred, telling funny stories about priests. A weak man does not have sufficient courage to rebel and protect the church truth, when he is present at the similar conversations and hears obscene words.

Here belong detracting God and sacred things; here are involved complaints to God for his as though merciless attitude towards the man, for the “innocent” sufferings, which are necessary to bear.

The bad custom of swearing and recalling of the name of God in vain is especially spread. This so unnoticeably penetrates into the daily life and becomes such an inherent habit, that to get rid from it is more difficult than from any great vice. In certain nations (the Serbians, for example) the abuse of the sacred name of God interlaces with the most disgusting curse.

An ancient Israelite either did not write the name of God in the Scripture at all, leaving the space, or he placed instead of it two signs of “Jota” (instead of Yahweh), but in any case he did not allow himself to pronounce the name of God or to abuse it. However, in the society the bad habit to say it frequently not at all to the point is spread everywhere. In any case there is no need or physical necessity in that; abstaining from this bad habit, the man will not suffer at all. Therefore to release oneself from this is a purely volitional matter, and it is necessary to take upon oneself an obligation and to be persistent in its performance. Similar to judging, this sin is the matter of usual disorderliness. Thus, a confessor should appeal not to the scientific authorities, not to the apology, but simply influence the psychics and will of the repentant. In this region the staying power of the man and his determination to truly repent, i.e., to change his sinful line of life, can especially be revealed.

Absence of ability to pray, as the more special case of not belonging to the church, is encountered very frequently. In the contemporary Christian society deprived of the framework of the church life and tradition, this is the almost everywhere spread sin. A priest must ask, if the penitent prays and what the fruits of his prayer are; if the prayer gives him spiritual consolation or it is a heavy duty, from which he tries to deviate under different pretexts; if he reads prayers from the prayer-book, if he has the established praying rule and habit to pray, or like many people, almost not leading the church life, he prefers a prayer with “his words”; if he reads the Gospel daily; if he had read the Bible at least once in his life, if he commemorates daily the names of his close ones, alive and departed, if he prays for “those who hate and offend us,” towards whom he has a bitter feeling of offence and hostility; if he goes regularly to the church or limits himself only with some feasts, the Passion Week, Pascha, Navity and the name day; if he follows the church fasts and how he carries out these days, and many other things. Sometimes it is revealed that the one who came for confession is completely deprived of the praying habit, does not recognize any discipline in this sphere and generally lives out of the Church. The contemporary state of forgetting about the church life accustomed very many to this non-Christian life out of the church.

A priest can hear that they are not used to pray with a prayer-book, and that they do not have any idea about the evening and morning rules. If to show and to read at least some evening and morning prayers to such people, then this would be a revelation for them, and in the case if they would accept with humiliation the advice of a priest to read these prayers daily as a must, this will serve to the great benefit for their souls, and possibly, at the following confession they would confess, how much this praying rule gives to them. Sometimes one could hear, that the known evening prayer (O Master that lovest all men, will not this bed be my grave?) became known to them because in the novel “War and Peace” old Countess Rostova reads this prayer before to sleep.

It is necessary to teach the repentant to get ready to take the Holy Gifts by compulsory reading of the assumed rule for the preparation to Communion. In connection with this it is necessary to insist on the so-called govenie, i.e., going to the church several days before confession, listening to the corresponding confessionary canons and chants.

The prayer is the temperature of the spiritual life, the index of the healthy or sick state of the penitent’s spirit. It is necessary to attempt not only to read prayers and to take part in the services in the church, — one should be taught to obtain the gift of prayer, the habit to pray, to love it, to wait for the praying hour. It is necessary to teach to love music of the church chants, the Slav language, colorfulness and vividness of the Liturgical symbols, the church splendor, etc. One should enter into the praying element.

This leads to the question about the exercise in praying. The skill of praying is to the known degree the skill to use one’s attention, not to be scattered, not to repeat the words of prayer only with lips, but also with the entire heart and entire thought to participate in praying. Here is important the so-called in asceticism “clever making” i.e. getting accustomed to be attentive in the prayer. The excellent means for this is “Jesus prayer” or even, multiple and slow repetition (better with the rosary) of the specific prayer “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” There is much ascetic literature on this praying exercise, gathered predominantly in “The Philocalia” and in the other paternal creations. The more contemporary and more literary interpretation of this doctrine is given in “The Sincere Stories of a Pilgrim to His Spiritual Father.”

Jesus prayer is especially good and important, for it is connected neither with time nor with place. It is possible to read it everywhere and always, at work, in the street, traveling, at home. It distracts our attention from the tempting, empty, irritating objects, and teaches to concentrate one’s mind and heart on the sweetest name of God. Though, in this spiritual making without guidance is concealed the danger to fall into the spiritual delusion, the pseudo-mystical state, about which it will be said below in more detail.

Frequently, after touching upon the question about the prayer, a confessor will hear, that a certain person has more difficulty to pray in the church than at home, that the church form of praying is unusual and strange for him, that everything distracts him in the temple, and to pray at home is better. Maybe, these persons and right, but this must not serve as the justification for their out-of-church state. It is necessary to teach them that the prayer has council character in the church, it is supported by the prayer of other people and the priest, that the very situation in the temple is the atmosphere, which subjects one to the prayer more than in the ordinary room, that the church prayer is the experience of the age-old tradition and it reaches God faster. The church prayer is higher in every respect than the home, individual one, which is good for the accomplishment of the praying rule. The sin of being out of the church body is manifested in different forms, but most frequently in the absence of love for divine service, for the understanding of the church life. The people, deprived from the childhood of the church upbringing and its traditional way of life, do not at all realize what the divine service is. These are some rites, in their opinion for some reason very long services, the repeated “Lord, have mercy.”

A priest is guilty himself in many respects, if he does not know how to fascinate by the divine service, if the service is not fine-looking, there is poor reading, tasteless chanting of the concert numbers, inability or unwillingness to explain the sense of the chants, to open the entire content of our Liturgical divine service. If a pastor in the divine service behaves himself not as a craftsman, but as an artist, then he will be able to draw many to the church.

The more particular form of the same absence of the church life is a loss of the Eucharist feeling and the stoppage of the Eucharist life. Many take communion once a year, some — still more rarely but consider themselves to be the believing people. Some accurately go to the church, but only are present at the Liturgy, without participating in it internally. Even from the times of Basil the Great and John Chrysostom the Eucharistic life began to weaken, as they noted in their writings, but they did not realize, what point the withdrawal of the Christians from the Church will reach in our time.

The majority of believers completely forgot that the Church has the Eucharistic character and it requires participation in its life. Not taking Communion is falling out of the church life. One must constantly take Communion, as frequent as possible. One should go to the Liturgy not only to listen to the beautiful chanting, a good deacon and to watch the magnificent ritual of an archpriest and council services. One cannot only be present at the Liturgy. It is accomplished so that the faithful, who came to this Mystic Supper, would participate in it. “Drink ye of it, all of you…” — hear all the faithful, but turn a deaf ear to it. “With the fear of God, and with faith draw near!” — hear everybody, but it occurs, that a priest takes away the Chalice into the Altar, from which no one was prepared and therefore could not take Communion.

A priest must, first of all, realize this himself. He must call everybody to the frequent communion, to the revival of the Eucharistic life and to the awakening of the Eucharistic consciousness and feeling.

Finally the sins against the church discipline most frequently are revealed in the non-fasting. “God does not need fasting,” — say the contemporaries, knowing nothing and not familiar with the Holy Scripture. “In Russia only simple peasants and merchants were fasting,” — will say those remembering the old times, but saying this they will only admit that they do not know the old life at all. Besides the intellectuals, who freed themselves from any church tradition, very many were fasting in the higher society, in the medium of petty bourgeois, merchants, among the simple people, and in the firm medium of the old faith believers.

It is necessary to call and get accustomed to the fasts, recollecting the example of the Lord Himself, Who was fasting for 40 days; recalling the life of the devotees, whom fasting helped to restrain their nature and carnal lust; reminding of and confirming this by the references on the chants of the Lenten Triodion, what and how much gives the fast. The Church does not prescribe the Lenten menu; the history of fasting is very instructive and the regulations of the certain monasteries introduce much variety. That what is considered lenten in Russia, in the east is considered luscious, since there, if someone is fasting, then he does it according to the cloister regulations, eating neither olive oil nor fish. Not one or another Lenten menu is important, but the principle of fasting, abstention itself. Together with keeping the physical fast it is necessary to teach abstention in words, thoughts, feelings, etc. Fasting, it is necessary to try not to fall into the sin of the Lenten gluttony, to gorge on although Lenten, but tasty viands.

Spiritual delusion or Prelest (from prelshat’— to delude) differs significantly from all the other sins against God and the Church. Similarly how in the asceticism passions proceed from the evil and take root in it, when the others have the good as their substantiation (pride and conceit together with some as if conquered sins); all the enumerated forms of sin in exactly the same manner have as their cause the deficiency in one or another spiritual gift or state, as for example: disbelief, deficiency in faith, unjust faith, absence of the praying habit, and the church life, etc., when there exists the special spiritual state, the source of which is the seeming surplus of the spiritual gifts. This is the so called “spiritual delusion” or spiritual enticement, — the sin especially known in the ascetic literature, in the monastic medium, among the people, inclined to the increased spiritual sensitivity.

It consists of the fact that such people imagine themselves as those who already reached some special fruits of the spiritual life, the proof of what are different dreams, seen by them, mysterious voices in the night silence, calls somewhere, etc. These people are frequently very mystically gifted, but because of the absence of spiritual-ecclesiastic education, absence of an experienced confessor and because of the tendency of the surrounding people to listen to their tales and yield to their influence, they easily acquire numerous supporters and organize sectarian movements. This begins from the stories about their confused sleeps with the claim for prophetic revelations. Then it passes to the following phase, — seeing in reality either any radiance or even different sky-inhabitants: angels, saints or even the Mother of God and the Lord-Savior Himself. They all report to this visionary the most unbelievable and senseless revelations. Sometimes such unhappy have the best motives, but lack the proper spiritual guidance of a strict, sober and thoughtful pastor. Frequently it was possible to note this in the people, who dedicated themselves to “the clever making,” those doing Jesus prayer with enthusiasm, but without any guidance. All the ascetic literature is full of stories about those, who fell into the spiritual delusion (prelest’), precisely when practicing the clever spiritual steadiness, what is characteristic, while having no guidance.

A priest sometimes has to deal with such painful phenomena. The ecstatic ladies or simple women bother a priest by the stories about dreams and visions, and this serves him as a test for his patience. It is necessary to grow unused to the similar inclinations, to suggest not believing in dreams, to find out, if such a person holds Jesus prayer and if he is not deluded by the uncontrolled “clever making.” Metr. Anthony advises to ask such visionaries, if the appearing saint was with the cross and if he blessed him with his cross or not, but, what is still more important in order to distinguish the true mystical endowment, the holy one from the false, is to look if this visionary is easily irritated, telling his stories about dreams and visions. “On the teaching of the fathers, — says Metr. Anthony, — anger and irritability, accompanying these stories are the sign of spiritual delusion of the one, who saw the visions, and their falsity.”

It is dangerous, of course, to frighten the man and to put out the authentic fire of his spiritual life. Therefore a priest should be especially careful: if among his spiritual children there are people with the actual spiritual gifts, then it is necessary not to give these gifts to fade, at the same time looking after this person that he should not fall into spiritual delusion. It is necessary to encourage the praying attention, to teach to do Jesus prayer, to preach about the ascetic study on this theme, but together with all this vigil that the fascinated people would not fall into willfulness, would not begin to deviate from the paternal directions and due to it fall into the spiritual ruin.