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Part 2.

The Spiritual care.

The Value of Confession.

This department of pastoral theology is treated in guides for spiritual care in all confessions. It acquires special importance in the Orthodox and Catholic pastrology, in the contrast with the Anglican and Protestant. Confession is recognized as a sacrament, and this conveys special shading to this question, of which those confessions born in the epoch of the Reformation are deprived. Furthermore, only in Orthodoxy does confession have the essence of pure church tradition, not loaded down with scholastic and casuistic details, but rather a tradition faithful to the experience of the holy fathers and ancient asceticism.

An educational course gives a purely scholastic and theoretical approach to this art. This sacrament most individual and private due to its intimate nature is presented to the future pastor in scholastic schematics and examples. Much in the pastoral service depends on a blessed moment, on help from above, and this is not possible to teach. However, the human moment, the wisdom of a pastor, his prayerful and spiritual struggles enter into this sacrament more than into any other, and this must be explained to a candidate for the priesthood. The experience of asceticism, the writings of confessors, testaments of the holy fathers, — all this, systematized and fitted for mastering in school, must be the object of an academic course.

With the inimitability and individuality of the human personality, and consequently of each separate confession, a teacher of the pastoral science should attempt to generalize and to build schemata for this part of the science. It is possible to speak, for example, about the different types of confessing and with that to facilitate the work of a young and inexperienced confessor in his encounters with different types of sinners. The sins themselves can be grouped according to their peculiarity, as negative manifestations of the spiritual life. Here the danger is in the scholastic divisions and overly academic systematization, but this facilitates the study of this difficult part of pastoral science, which the fathers called the skill of all skills.

However, at the same time a priest often has to come into the contact with such cases such as cannot be subjected to classification and which do not fit into the narrow framework of moral theology. This matter concerns such special twists of the internal world of a man, pathologic phenomena and paradoxes, which relate more to the field of pastoral psychoanalysis and psychiatry.

These three themes (the typology of sinners, of sin and pastoral psychiatry) comprise the subject of the present portion of spiritual care. It is necessary to begin with some general notions concerning confession.

The Church not only appeals to God, not only reveres Him, or performs divine services in His honor; She richly and generously edifies by Her Divine service anyone who attentively listens to Her words. In their hymns, the Lenten Triodion and Oktoechos teach believers the secrets of the ascetic fathers, mystical experience, the truths of theology. The science of self-perfection in the struggle with passions and sins is taught in the poetic and edifying form of church hymnography. The Church provides, for the edification of believers, the canon of St. Andrew of Crete and other hymns of the Great Lent period.

In his job of divine service an Orthodox priest possesses a weapon of such as not only the Protestants, but also traditional Catholics are completely deprived. His ministration of divine services can be a powerful means for the education and guidance of believers. However, the main means of the spiritual care in a priest is the pastoral word in sermons, spiritual conversations, at confession and in other times. This word, based on the experience of the holy fathers, taken from the treasury of the ascetic struggles and the church writings helps a pastor to accomplish his spiritual guidance of believers not on the basis of personal experience and conjecture, but in connection with the history of the church. If one adds to this the special gift of pastoral love and compassion, together with the tendency toward the spiritual revival of that fallen, and not through a desire to rule souls, then in the hands of an Orthodox confessor will appear a special wonderful force, helping him in the matter of the spiritual care.

Let us remember the words of Metropolitan Anthony: “The majority of our priests do not know what a great spiritual force is located in the hands of believing clergy” (“Confession,” p.4). A young, inexperienced priest, timid and little informed, very frequently is ashamed of those secret and intimate conversations which the majority of the spiritually weak, straying, and doubting and so on need. However, among the young clergy there also occurs an ailment of the reverse order: to be plunged immediately and deeply into pastoral spiritual care, to be tempted by the ideal of the “elder-confessor,” the “startets,” to expect from the flock unconditional obedience, etc. But as he becomes familiar with the experience of the church this ailment leaves a clever pastor sufficiently rapidly, whereas the first disease signifies the indifference of a young priest to the spiritual needs of the flock, and therefore it is much more dangerous than the second one.

We have already mentioned that pastoral service must not be limited by asceticism alone, that the business of a priest is much wider and deeper than was shown in the textbooks of seminary spiritual ethics. A pastor who limits his activity to just the Divine services and catechetical aspect truly underestimates his responsibilities and does not accomplish that which was entrusted to him. On the contrary, spiritual care, the ethical, ascetic aspect, undoubtedly turns out to be the one of the main tasks of his job. A priest who turns away from these questions thereby shows a lack of vocation and incapacity to satisfy the most essential requirements of his service.

It is not correct to limit the process of salvation only by ascetic and moral, spiritual care content. In the ascetic understanding of salvation, one can note a negative tone, i.e., a call to the NON-performance of this or that, and the positive, creative (“do good”) tone is sometimes brought to complete passivivity, to an unwillingness overall to do anything. This “spiritual nihilism” is very akin to the “psychological monophysitism” and in no way corresponds to the way that holy fathers behaved and taught.

But while not limiting the Orthodox study of salvation in such a way and not to detract from its positive, creative element, nevertheless the ascetic, confessional, moral aspectt will occupy first place in the science of spiritual care. The reaching toward salvation begins from this; through the door of repentance the sinner approaches the confessor, asking for help and guidance. Therefore feeding (paseniye), as salvation (spasenie), is the main and first concern of a pastor-confessor. Whether one will intimidate a sinner or to give him hope; burden his helpless consciousness by the threatening tortures of conscience here and in the future life, or revive him through compassionate love and pull him out of the sinful abyss, depends on this. The task of a pastor is to suggest that although a man is a sinner, he also bears the image of God; and the image of God the Creator means that he can create something positive, that it is possible to change his spiritual state, and not to consider everything lost, and himself damned and spiritually dead.

Therefore, approaching the confession in general, and each sinner individually, a pastor must remember how accountable he is in this service. He should remember that in his hands is the possibility to intimidate and by this means to ruin the weak and culpable, but also to raise, revive and save him. “The gift to pardon is higher than the gift to correct by punishment,” — wrote Metropolitan Philaret (“Letters to Archimandrite Anthony,” volume 1, p. 28). That is why confession is: for a sinner — the day of repentance, beginning a new way of life, while for a pastor — the opportunity to approach the soul of the penitant, to begin his re-education and revival. In this revival, enormous possibilities are given to him: to lead the repentant, to direct his life along the new way, to make him the member of the Church and to introduce him to the mystical life of the body of Christ.

A confessor can suggest to the one confessing what the Christian understanding of life is, the world, creation, etc. The confessor who reduces confession to the usual schematic list of sins and virtues, who estimates the Christian life only as the sum of good deeds and the Gospel — as the moral study— such a pastor simply understands nothing in the matter of salvation, but is rather just a scholastic and casuist.

The admittance of sins by the confessing person is only the first step on the way of the Christian formation, turning away from previous culpable habits and, naturally, the expectation of some new pieces of advice. However, for a priest this confession is the beginning of the opportunity to be kind to a weak person. In the hands of a clever and thoughtful confessor lies the enormous power of transforming and enlightening a sinner.

Confession, as mentioned above, is the most individual sacrament, least of all lending itself to overall diagrams and rules, but the educational pastoral science is obligated to give its practical advice and introductory information from the experience of the Church.

The sacrament of confession is unique unto itself and requires understanding of some facets which concern: 1) the relative situation and content of confession, 2) the approach, mood and behavior of a confessor during the sacrament, 3) the external ritual, or, it is better to say, liturgical details.

1. The atmosphere of confession and its peculiarities.

The confession of a sinner, the dialogue between him and confessor, significantly differs from all general human conversations and social relations.

First, a man appears here in the completely opposite light, than in the ordinary life. If people always try to show their best side and to hide all their flaws so that the others would not think worse of them than they are, then in confession a sinner reveals all his negative sides, recollecting his sins and showing his humiliating side. A priest must seek for such a correct and spiritually useful confession, as the first condition. Any confession must begin from this, and it is necessary to teach this. In other words, those coming for confession and ashamed to speak about their sins, reduce the conversation to the general objects, “confess the sins of their close ones, but not theirs”; such people have no idea about confession and do not obtain any benefit from it.

Confession erases all partitions and gives to the contact of the confessor and sinner the nature of the absolute equality. A priest has to confess adults and children, men and women, simpletons and scientific wise men, average men, his fellow priests, bishops, tsars and rulers. All these categories of people have one general designation “the penitent,” i.e. one seeking spiritual regeneration. Therefore the conscience of a confessor must be crystal clear for him to listen to confession of any person, his patience must always be limitless, the standard of righteousness — always flawlessly precise.

Hence the special relation of a “spiritual father” and “spiritual children” is born. The old-Russian language had a special expression: “a confessionary priest, confessionary family.” Pastoral compassionate love generates such relations of the spiritual relationship, in which there must not be any kind of sentimentality. Obedience to the spiritual father must not acquire the nuance of a spiritual dictatorship; a confessor is not the “spiritual director,” as the Catholics frequently call him. However, on the other hand, one ought not to forget the aspect of authority of a confessor and obedience of his spiritual children.
2. Approach, mood and behavior of confessor.

Being prepared for confession overall and approaching an individual confession, a priest must always remember that on him depends much in the matter of the sinner’s salvation. The Grace of God saves and revives on its own, of course, but it is given through a pastor and to him is entrusted the weighty confessional word. It is necessary for a priest to acquire and always build up in himself the following:

A) Spiritual experience, which cannot be acquired from a textbook immediately, but is obtained by the prayerful struggles, plunging into the word of God, paternal scriptures and contact with spiritual teachers. This experience is given through the work on oneself and, as the Metropolitan Anthony teaches, by the effort “to fall in love with people, with the man, at least, in the minutes, when he entrusts himself to you, and to God” (“Confession,” p. 7).

B) Realization of the special character of his service as a confessor. Creating in oneself the special moral talent of compassionate love, which helps a pastor to revive the penitant, to become a participant of the atoning work of Christ.

C) Relating to sin as to a disease, more than as to a crime. Hence comes the effort to help the sinner, to cure him, to quiet his conscience, and inclination to love the sinner, to feel sorry for him, but in no way not to be fastidious to him and far less to expose and condemn the guilty.

D) Remembering the absolute secrecy of confession. The things told in confession can never and under no circumstances be reported by a confessor to anyone. A priest therefore must keep a secret and not give it away in the official talks, during police and judicial investigations and processes, he always must be alert. Neither with a hint nor with expression during the sermon or in the pastoral conversations a priest does not dare to say about what was told him in the sacrament of Confession.

E) Developing in himself clever and heartfelt attention, penetrating to the aforesaid, trying to examine the complex and sometimes intricate spiritual life of the penitant. Sometimes it is necessary to reach to the roots and sources of the spiritual disease of a man, as if to make a spiritual psychoanalysis. A pastor must develop the special gift of spiritual reasoning within him.

F) Obtaining exceptional patience and humility. The first is especially necessary during the prolonged and populous confessions, when a person, who does not know how to confess, begins to tell the things, which do not pertain to confession, everyday trifles and details or, condeming close ones, saying no word about his own sins. The second is needed, when some persons begin to teach a priest, pointing at his drawbacks, enveloping this in the form of making themselves guilty of the judgment of a pastor in this or that.

G) In the matter of compassionate love for the repentant, a priest must know how to understand everything in order to forgive all. However, at the same time a pastor must not forget that such general pardon must give no occasion for the weakening of believers’ morals. The paternal standard is “to love a sinner, but to hate the sin.” Therefore, a priest must know the boundary of his compassion in order not to give a sinner the chance to continue his sinful habits further. People with “broad” views say: “Christ condemned no one, he forgave even a fornicatress”; but they forget that Christ, pardoning her, said: “Go and sin no more.” A pastor therefore must remember his paternal authority to pardon, but also to bind and loose, when this is necessary. Condescending to the weakness of sinful humanity, he must not distort the Evangelical understanding of sin. Metropolitan Philaret wonderfully writes: “There must be condescension to the one who stumbled and fell, but the condescension to the negligent and stagnating in the downfall has an unfavorable result in society, cools zeal and extends negligence. It is necessary to take care of each one, but still more — of the spirit of entire society. May the Lord guide us to combine mercy and truth” (The Letters, 1883, p. 2).
3. The outward conditions of confession.

These concern the Liturgical moments of this sacrament and the very methods of confession. In relation to the Liturgy, a priest should know the following:

A) To try to develop the Eucharistic life of his parish more. Frequent communion must become the standard, not an exception.

B) Confession must not be indispensably connected with Communion. It is possible to confess not just on the eve of Communion. Such were the opinions among the pastors and pastoralists that the people who lived the strict Eucharistic life, who frequently confessed and took Communion, did not indispensably have to confess before each Communion.

C) Confession must not be limited to just the Lenten period of the year. It is good to take Communion more frequently, during each fast, on the great feasts, on personal and family days. This frees a priest from the large quantity of those confessing during Holy Week and other weeks of Great Lent.

D) Many advise to anticipate confession with a corresponding sermon. Sermons about repentance, by no means accusatory, but instructive, must be given more frequently, in order to warm up the desire for spiritual revival in believers.

E) It is necessary to decisively avoid general confessions, when people, who are ashamed to accept their sins, carry out only the formal side, without self-accusation, and consequently without a benefit for the soul, either.

F) Before confession a priest should read the given prayers and not forget to read the homily from the Book of Needs: “Behold, My Child, Christ standeth here invisibly.”

G) After having listened to confession and suggested to the repentant what in this case the pastoral conscience considers to be necessary, one should read the first prayer of absolution of the Book of Needs: “Oh Lord God of the salvation of Thy servants…” since it contains appeal to God about the reconciliation of the sinner with the church, forgiveness of his sins and giving to him an “image of repentance.” The second prayer, “May our Lord and God Jesus Christ…” is actually even non-Orthodox. It is known neither to the Greeks nor to the other Orthodox and it was not in our Books of Needs in the old times. It came to us from Peter Mogila and bears the Latin stamp, assigning the forgiveness of sins to a priest: “And I, His unworthy priest, do forgive and absolve thee….” Unfortunately, the majority of priests read it, omitting the substantially important first prayer.

This comprises to main Liturgical reminders for a confessor. It is also possible to point out the difference between our manner of confession in comparison with the Greek one. There the Litany about the forgiveness of sins is read, both prayers before confession stand in the reverse order and there are some absolutely special, not existing in our church, prayers of absolution. The Greeks also preserved the ancient institute of the “confessionary fathers,” which we forgot, but the tracks of which are still preserved in the Books of Needs.

The Slavonic Book of Needs contains “the Special Preface and Legend,” about “What a confessor should be like,” before chapter seven “About Confession.” Besides the different indications of an exhorting nature, at the end of this Preface we read: “if someone without the imperative certificate of the local bishop dares to listen to thoughts and confessions, he is worthy of just punishment as one breaking the divine rules, because he ruined not only himself, but also those, who confessed to him, and remained as non-confessed...” However, not a single priest of the Russian church had ever seen these certificates from the bishop for several centuries, and not a single bishop used such plenary powers to allow the clergy to confess.

It is a different matter in the East. The Greek “Euchology” contains the special office: “The Prayer of Ordaining to the Priesthood by an Archpriest.” Here is its content.

As usual, the deacon says: “In peace let us pray to the Lord.” The Archpriest reads the prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ our God, Who gave a gift of the apostolic and confessionary service to Peter and other ten disciples, and commanded to bind and loose transgressions of people, Thyself fill with grace and show worthy of the apostolic and confessionary service, Thy servant (name) through my humility, in order to bind and loose the sins of the unworthy. To Thee are due all glory, and honor, and worship, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of the ages.”

After this, the Gospel of John is read: “The first day of the week … early, when it was yet dark” (20:19 and as follows).

The Archpriest, after reading the Gospel part, finalizes the office with such a formula: “The Divine grace, which ever healeth that which is infirm and supplieth that which is wanting, passing through my hand, ordaineth this most pious subdeacon for deacon; let us therefore pray for him, that the grace of the All-holy Spirit may come upon him.”

In the East and in old Russia in such way ordained into the special service of the “spiritual rank” priests could serve the confession of sinners, coming to them. This did not introduce any depreciation of the sacrament of the Priesthood. Of course, every priest, lawfully ordained, possesses the sacramental authority to bind and loose. However, the Church does not permit him to undertake that discipline, until he acquires adequate vital and spiritual experience.

Certainly, large spaces of Russia, rare parishes, great spiritual needs, and in particular, abnormal conditions of our life cannot be satisfied with such a small number of confessors, set by the archpriests. That is why young, recently ordained priests, without any spiritual experience, happen to heal inveterate diseases and to become confessors.

This difference in the two pastoral practices astonishes our compatriots while being acquainted with the Greek custom. In the eighteenth century Metropolitan Raphael Zaborovsky spoke out negatively in regard to this, indicating that if a priest is permitted to serve all the sacraments, then why is one of them is forbidden. However, one should say that this is not even a prohibition, but a certain limitation, that takes in account the age of young priests and their inexperience; it is of disciplinary, but not sacramental, nature. In practice, the Russian church and hieromonks were not permitted to marry people, but embassy and naval hieromonks could fulfill this sacrament.

We repeat that the prohibition fromour Books of Needs to confess without a special certificate from the archpriest, when this certificate no Russian priest ever obtained or saw, attracts attention. In that case, one should not put this into the Books of Needs.

However, such certificates were given in old Russia. Here is the inscription on them from “The Collection of Monuments on the History of Church Laws”: “The letter, which is given to a priest, when they ordain him into a spiritual father” (“The Collection of Monuments on the History of Church Laws,” Petrograd, iss. 1, 1914, p. 49)

“Our humility, according to your application, blesses the most honest among the reverent monks NN to be a spiritual father in order to receive confession of the Christians coming to him. A confessor should not be flattering, money-loving, gluttonous, ambitious, irascible, vain, rancorous or vindictive, but be gentle, subdued in everything, possessing hatred to the illusory goods of this world, patient, fasting, alert, studying the Scripture, understanding the Apostolic rules and the Church canons, one that keeps purity of the heart, merciful, reverently accomplishing priestly divine services and sacraments, sensitive to divine suggestion, since such, on the word of the Lord, are given Grace to understand the secrets of the Heavenly Reign. He must check the hearts of the people, coming to him, their transgressions and thoughts, and give them advice in accordance with the established rules, to expose some, have pity to the others, to call everybody to the soul’s salvation. Therefore let him think whom to bind, and whom to loose, depending on what they deserve...”
The ancient Russian practice did not differ from the Greek— such is evident from the ancient manuscript “Potrebnik.” So for example, in the manuscript books of Novgorod Sofia's library (number 1061, 1062, 1066, 1067, 1085, 1087) such note is contained: “Young priests still cannot dare to accept a single soul for confession.”

We forgot the ancient Russian and contemporary eastern practice so, that even in the official periodical of the Spiritual Academy of 1896 is given the indication that under the imperative certificate it is necessary to understand the “protégé certificate,” with which the ordained acquires all the hierarchical rights. This is not correct. The protégé certificate is the certification from the diocesan archpriest in the legality of ordination; but the certificate about which the Book of Needs and ancient canonical monuments speak, is the special authority to the accomplishment of the confessionary service, connected with the mentioned office of “ordaining into a confessor.”

If this ancient practice cannot be revived under our conditions, then one should not enter it in the Books of Needs in order not to confuse the conscience of the priests. The young priests, remembering about the ancient practice, should perceive their position of being a spiritual father with more care.
Speaking of the method of confession, it is necessary to recall that confession is an individual sacrament and each repentant is unique, while each confessor can have his personal methods, and therefore there is no possibility to give any monotonous and exemplary prescriptions, how to confess.

A confessor can prefer the recognized form of this sacrament, but a penitant can have his own typical features, which require adaptation to his psychology. Confession can be conducted in the form of questions and answers: yes - no, I am guilty, yes I repent, etc. This is the more simplified method, both for the people who do not know how to confess and for those who feel shy to reveal some sinful thoughts, it is even easier, but it has a formal aspect which resembles interrogation. Confession can be in the form of a conversation, deprived of formalism and reducing everything only to the enumeration of ones misdeeds. Very good confessors often preferred exactly this form of confession (elder Ambrose of Optina Hermitage, Metr. Anthony, father Alexis Nelyubov). Some confessors prefer not to speak themselves, but to give the penitant a chance to express everything himself. This gives a confessor the opportunity to concentrate internally, to pray to himself, but in this case a penitant is supposed to be confessing frequently, openely, and used to participate in the sacrament.

However it may be, a priest must not only listen to, and then, after giving advice, read the prayer of absolution during confession, but is obliged to pray to himself while a repentant confesses him the sins. The best is the Jesus prayer. It helps to the sinner with its spiritual force and strengthens a confessor himself, purifies and clarifies his spiritual sight.

Frequently one can hear from those coming for the spiritual doctoring about their inability to confess and the lack of knowledge how to express what is in the heart. Even if the repentant do not recognize this, then it can be easily revealed during confession; many do not have a clue, of what confession consists, of what is necessary to speak, on what to focuse their attention.

Therefore a confessor needs to prepare the guided for confession. It is necessary to give sermons about repentance, to use every opportunity to direct the thoughts of people toward confessionary themes, it is necessary to edify and to enlighten people in conversation. Some people, without thinking about the long line for confession, that a priest has insufficient time and that he is a man with limited attention as are others, simply talk profusely on all possible subjects, except the main and only necessary thing: their sins, repentance and tendency towards correction.

Some people, touchy, rancorous, and egoistic, etc. begin to tell a priest about the sins of their neighbors, to condemn, completely forgetting their own transgressions and flaws. Others suddenly ask the most difficult theological and philosophical questions, which “torment” them, for example: on the meaning of suffering, why God allows that, about “the tear of a child,” completely forgetting that confession cannot be a seminar on such themes and be dedicated to their problems. It is necessary to explain that confession is one thing, and spiritual conversation is an entirely different matter. There are some who begin to tell about their further plans or of what they think concerning one or another question. One can also meet with this type of penitant, who loquaciously and unctuously try to prove their spiritual knowledge and imaginary theological erudition to a priest, what is very far from simple confession, i.e., simple acceptance of their sins. Sometimes one meets with the man, not recognizing himself guilty in anything, treating himself “as the one who has done nothing special,” avoiding to say in confession something shameful about himself, or simply keeping silence. It is still possible to give many diverse examples, but all this only proves the fact that only a few people are aware, what confession must consist of, what repentance is and why the Lord established this sacrament.

A good analysis of repentance we find, reading father A. Yelchaninov’s “Notes” (first edition., p. 64): “The pain from the sin, aversion of it, its acceptance, confession, determination and desire of deliverance, mysterious transformation of the man, accompanied by tears, with the stress of the entire organism, purification of all levels of the soul, a feeling of lightening, happiness, peace.”

If this is important for a sinner, then a priest should remember the words of Metr. Anthony: “The deeper you are imbued with the consciousness of your personal distance from that spirit of all-embracing love and compassion, with which must be filled a Christ's pastor, the more you mourn over your heart-hardness, the nearer to you is Divine Grace, the more accessible your soul is for the bright enlightening.” A priest must humbly appeal to God to give him understanding and to guide him, for the softening of his heart, for the gift of the spirit of compassionate love and the guidance wisdom” (“Confession,” 14).

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