Archimandrite Cyprian (Kern)
A sinner's confession, that is, his conversation with his spiritual father, differs in essence from any other conversation: above all, in confession a person behaves in exactly the opposite way from ordinary everyday life. While always and everywhere a person tries to show himself in the best light and carefully hides his failings, so that no one may think him worse than he really is, in confession he lays bare all his negative sides, tries to remember every sin he has committed, and is not ashamed to present himself in a humiliating light. This is the first and chief condition of a right confession, one profitable to the soul, and the priest must without fail bring it about. Every confession should begin with this. The priest must learn this. A person who in confession is afraid to talk about his own sins, “who repents of the sins of those near him but not of his own,” turns confession into a conversation on general subjects, which shows that he has no idea at all of what confession is; and such a “confession” brings his soul no profit whatever. Confession wipes out all boundaries and gives the relationship between spiritual father and sinner the character of absolute equality. The priest has to hear the confessions of children and adults, of women and men, of simple people and learned scholars; of ordinary townsfolk, peasants, beggars, his fellow clergy, hierarchs, kings and rulers of states. But the difference between these categories is completely erased behind one common name — “penitent,” that is, these are people who want their souls to be born anew. So the conscience of the spiritual father must be crystal-clear to hear every person, his patience always boundless, and his measure of right impeccably true.
From this is born the special relationship between “spiritual father” and “spiritual child.” This is neither a figure of speech nor a conventional expression. It is precisely the spiritual father's compassionate love that brings about such spiritual kinship. There is no need at all for any sentimentality in this kinship. Spiritual fatherhood is love, not power. In the spiritual father's hands there is both balm and the firm rod of justice. Obedience to the spiritual father should not have the tinge of a spiritual dictatorship; the spiritual father is not at all a “spiritual director,” as he is so often called among the Latins. But on the other hand we must not forget the spiritual father's authority and the element of obedience to him either.
When the priest prepares for confession — that is, when he continually prepares himself for the high ministry of spiritual fatherhood, and also before hearing each particular confession — he must remember that the salvation of the sinner depends a great deal on him. It is, of course, the grace of God that saves a person and gives him new birth, but it is given through the priest. The priest must strive to acquire spiritual experience, which is certainly not given from textbooks alone, nor all at once, but is gained through the labour of prayer, through going deep into the word of God and the thought of the holy fathers, and through contact with spiritual teachers. This experience comes to the spiritual father through work on himself. As Metropolitan Anthony (of Sourozh) teaches the clergy, one must try “to love people, to love the person — at least in those minutes when he has entrusted himself to you, entrusted himself to the Lord” (“Confession,” p. 7).
The priest must be aware of the special character of his ministry as a spiritual father. He must cultivate in himself the moral gift of compassionate love, which will help him to bring the penitent to new birth, to help him, and to become a sharer in Christ's redeeming work.
The priest should regard sin more as a sickness than as a crime. He should try to help the sinner, to heal him and to calm his troubled conscience. He should try to love the sinner, to pity him. He should not despise him, and should expose and judge him as little as possible.
The priest must always remember that confession is an absolute secret, and that what he hears in confession he must never, under any circumstances, share with anyone. The priest must always keep this secret, and never reveal it in private conversation, under police questioning or in a court investigation; he must always bear this in mind and be careful. Neither by a hint, nor by his expression, nor in a sermon, nor in pastoral talks should the priest tell what was confided to him during the mystery of repentance.
The priest should try to develop in himself a sensitive and intelligent attentiveness, to take in what he hears, to try to find his way in the complex and tangled spiritual life of the penitent. He must at once carry out the task of a special pastoral psychoanalysis — get to the bottom of things, find out what is the cause of this or that person's spiritual sickness and hopeless state. He must develop in himself the special gift of “spiritual discernment.”
The priest should try to acquire boundless patience and humility. The first is especially necessary in long and crowded confessions, and above all when a person who does not know how to confess begins to talk about things that have nothing to do with confession, recalls all sorts of domestic trifles, or even “repents of the sins of those near him” without uttering a single word of repentance about himself. Sometimes it also happens (and quite often) that some people during confession begin themselves to instruct the spiritual father, point out his failings — sometimes disguising this in the refined form of admitting their own guilt — and judge the spiritual father “for this” and “because of that,” and so on.
We mentioned above the spiritual father's special gift of compassionate love for the repentant sinner, that is, the ability to share with the penitent in his spiritual torment. The priest must acquire in himself the ability to understand everything in order to forgive everything. But at the same time the spiritual father must not forget that such all-forgiveness must not become a pretext for weakening the moral principles of the faithful. The spiritual father must always remember the measure of the holy fathers: “Love the penitent, but hate the sin itself.” So he must know the limit of his compassion, so as not to give the one who has sinned a pretext for going on with his ruinous habits. “Christ judged no one; Christ forgave even the adulteress,” people of “broad views” often say. But they forget that Christ, when He forgave the harlot, also said to her: “Go, and sin no more.” The spiritual father must always remember his fatherly authority, the authority to loose, but at the same time must not forget the authority to bind when it is needed. In treating the sinner's weakness with indulgence, he must not distort the Gospel teaching on sin. Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow writes: “We should show indulgence to the fallen; but indulgence toward a person who is careless and, having fallen, does not want to rise, has an undesirable influence on the community: it cools zeal and spreads carelessness. We must spare every person; but still more must we spare the soul of the whole community. The Lord teaches us to join mercy with truth.”
