Confession

Adapted from Our Orthodox Christian Faith by Athanasios S. Frangopoulos (Brotherhood of Theologians).

Confession is also a God-instituted Sacrament, established by our Lord out of extreme goodness and love for man, so that man's sins commited after Baptism might be remitted. For this reason the Sacrament is called a "Second Baptism". It is also called "Repentance", "Confession", "Divulging". From these names every one of us can understand the essential and necessary conditions for this Sacrament of the remission of sins.

First, it is called "Repentance", i.e. the inner change of though, mind and disposition. A complete recognition of responsibility and blame for all the evil that the sinner has commited; i.e. a sense of his sinfulness and a deep sorrow and contrition of heart even to pain and tears for his sins and iniquities.

Secondly, it is called "Confession", i.e. the revealing, before the Spiritual Father, the Priest and celebrant of the Sacrament, of his soul's inner repentance, compunction and contrition, and his tearful and humble acknowledgement and confession of his guilt, and the seeking of divine mercy and of the remission of sins.

Thirdly, it is called the "Divulging" of this sins; this does not differ from confession; it signifies that one does not hide his sins either because his is ashamed and for this reason he hesitates and avoids enumerating them one by one, or because he is afraid that his sins will be exposed and that he will suffer painful consequences because of them. The enumeration of one's deviations or moral transgressions and falls one by one and with deep contrition and compunction is necessary. Then the confession and acknowledgement of one's guilt for all the evil that he has committed - he and no one else - and the seeking of God's forgiveness for each of his sins, and the seeking of directions, advices and instructions from his Spiritual Father Confessor so that he will not fall again into the same sins and transgressions, are elements which will ensure his further progress in the spiritual life, a life of continuous repentance and progress in virtue.

Then does the sinner indeed repent. Then - providing he subjects himself to the three prerequisites of true repentance - he receives from God through his confessor "forgiveness and remission of sins" and his conscience is relieved, and his soul is at peace; the burden and agony of guilt which weighed upon him disappears, and he feels completely at peace and at rest, experiencing the blessings and grace of God in his life.