Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh

What does repentance consist in?

A man who has been living for himself, having turned his back on God, begins, all at once or little by little, to think that his life cannot be full if it goes on the way he is living it. And so a man begins to turn toward God. Repentance consists precisely in this — in turning toward God. This is what is first and decisive. And when we suddenly change course and turn back to God, to the truth, to that to which man is called at all, this already means that we have taken the first step toward repentance. But it does not yet mean that we have repented, because we have not yet changed. For that to happen, we have to go through something. A man cannot simply part with his accustomed life, deny himself and turn toward God. When a man lives peacefully for himself and nothing particular happens to him, he “grazes,” as it were, on the field of life; he is at his ease and does not reflect that above him is a bottomless sky; he does not think of any danger. Life is pleasant for him. But if something suddenly falls upon him, he will begin to think about everything; he will think that, as it turns out, not everything is so simple.

It happens that a man, without thinking, does something that seems insignificant, and suddenly finds himself in a terrible situation. This happened once to a boy who was waving a knife about senselessly in front of his sister. Suddenly the knife struck her in the eye. At once he understood what madness and irresponsibility it is to play like that. His sister remained blind in one eye for the rest of her life. Nor could her brother forget it. And this showed itself not in his being afraid to touch a dagger or a penknife, but in his understanding now that the most insignificant action can have a tragic end.

Sometimes a man's repentance comes not from a tragic accident but from the opinion that others, as it turns out, have of him, and which he happens to overhear. We always imagine ourselves to be the best of people, and when we are criticized we do not accept the criticism, because we think that the other person fails to see our extraordinary qualities. But then we happen to overhear what is said about us behind our backs. It turns out that while we pictured ourselves as a hero, others in fact see us as a coward. We thought ourselves just, while others, it turns out, consider us cunning, and so on. When we reflect on all this, questions arise in us: who am I, after all? What is my calling? I mean, of course, not a professional calling, but what kind of person I ought to become. Am I really content with what I am?! Can I really not change and become better?!

It also happens that a man begins to think about all this while reading the Gospel. We read the Gospel and see what a man ought to be. We see the image of Christ in all His beauty, or as far as we are able to see it. And then we begin to compare ourselves with Him. We begin to look not at ourselves but at Christ, or else at what people say about us.

This is how judgement of oneself begins. And from the moment of judgement repentance comes. Yet this is not yet full repentance, because condemning oneself does not at all mean that the soul feels pain over what it has done.

Sometimes with our mind we do feel that we are bad and that in this case or that we ought to have acted otherwise, but we have no experience of it. I remember one incident. Long ago (back in the 1920s), at one of the congresses of the Russian Student Christian Movement, we had with us a remarkable priest, Father Alexander Elchaninov. It was to him that an officer came to confession and said:

— I can tell you my whole life, all the wrongs I have done. But what I have done I recognize only with my mind. My heart is insensible to all of it. It is all the same to me. With my mind I understand that all this is evil, but with my heart I feel nothing: neither pain nor shame.

And then Father Alexander told him something extraordinary:

— Do not repent to me. It will come to nothing. Better come tomorrow, before the Liturgy begins, to the Royal Doors, and when everyone has gathered, say what you have just told me. Before all who will be at the service, confess your sins.

The officer agreed, because he felt that he had lost every capacity for sympathy and feeling; only memory and reason were left to him, while his heart had died, as though life itself had gone out in it. He left the priest in turmoil. He was tormented: how could he tell everything in front of others?! He thought everyone would turn their backs on him and loathe him: “We took him for a decent man, and look how vile he turns out to be.” But he was so troubled by his state that he overcame this fear and shame. The next day, before the service began, he stood at the Royal Doors and began to speak.

And something quite unexpected happened.

All the members of the congress turned toward him with compassion, and he felt as though everyone had pressed him to their hearts, that everyone felt for him and shared his pain. Then he wept, and went on with his confession sobbing and in tears;

from that day he began a new life. This is a very important moment... repentance. Repentance does not consist in coldly listing our sins and confessing them thus before God, but in all this shaking us so that it brings us to tears.

An interesting thought on this is expressed by the disciple of Symeon the New Theologian, St Niketas Stethatos. He says that tears of sincere repentance can restore to a man his lost virginity.

That is exactly what repentance should be.

But what if we are not always capable of such repentance?! What are we to do then? You have probably read how archaeological excavations of ancient cities and monuments are carried out. An archaeologist comes and begins to dig. At first he sees ordinary soil, then little by little he makes out some outlines — things that went under the earth long ago. This is the first glimpse of what he is looking for. So it is in a man's heart. At first we discover, only in embryo, what lowers our dignity: that we are unworthy of the respect and love with which we are surrounded, and of the love which God shows us. This is how our eyes are opened. Now we can come to confession and say that in the depth of our soul, and perhaps deeper still, lies a whole world of sins, on the surface of which I have already recognized a few things, and I feel the desire to lay it open before God and say to Him:

— Lord, I have seen this! Thou hast helped me to see it, and so I want to renounce this evil. I do not yet know how to repent, but I do know that my sins are incompatible with our friendship, with the relationships I have with those close to me, and with what I want to be.

There is an ancient prayer of absolution from the Middle Ages which ends with these words:

— May God forgive you every sin of which you have repented with all sincerity. That is, He forgives not what you have said, but what has shaken you with your whole soul, what has made you tremble. These are the sins that will be forgiven you. The rest is already a new task. You must try to enter more deeply into yourself, search and discover what you consider unworthy of yourself, of God and of the people who picture you quite differently. In this way confession becomes part of a progressive, gradually deepening repentance. In this way new depths will open to you one after another. Then the question will arise in you:

— What then does life consist in? Is it really in delving into oneself and seeing nothing there but evil, evil, evil?.. In sinking into darkness? Surely one cannot live like that!

Yes, it is hard. But there is no other way to drive out the darkness. Darkness can be fought only with light. And if we see something sensible in ourselves, it means that light has broken into our life.

I want to give you an example which I tell to children who come to confession, who come and say to me:

— I do see evil in myself, but I cannot root it out, tear it out.

I ask:

— When you go into a dark room, do you try to drive out the darkness by waving a white towel about, and do you hope to scatter it that way?

— No, of course not!

— Then what do you do?

— I open the shutters, draw back the curtains, open the window.

— That is exactly what you must do. You let light in where before there was darkness. And you must do the same now. If you truly want to repent and change, you must not pay attention only to what is bad in you — you must let the light into yourself. So you must pay attention to what is bright in you. And it is by means of this light that you must fight the darkness nesting in you.

— Yes, but how am I to do that? Must I really think that I am good?

— No. You must read the Gospel and mark the places that strike your heart, that make your heart tremble, by which your mind is enlightened, which move you to begin a new life. You must know that in this word, in this image, in this commandment, in this example of Christ, you have found a spark of divine light. And the defiled, darkened image that you are grows bright. And by this you are already becoming a little like Christ; the image of God is beginning to show itself in you. And if that is so, you must remember it. Then, if you go on sinning, you will know that you are defiling the holiness that already lives in you, is already at work, is already growing. You will know that by sin you are putting out the image of God in you, putting out the light and so strengthening the darkness. Do not do it.

Faith that there is light in you gradually scatters the darkness. Because, first, where there is light, darkness is scattered. Second, when you discover some particle of light in yourself, see purity, truth; when you look at yourself and think that, after all, you are a real human being, then you can fight against what attacks you like an enemy who has come to take a city, fight against what darkens this light in you. In this way you will learn the worth of purity. And then the unseen warfare begins. Foul thoughts rise up, carnal passions, and now you must withstand their onslaught. At such a time you can say to yourself: no, I have found in myself a spark of chastity, of purity, a desire to love in such a way as not to defile this person even in thought, let alone by touching them. I cannot and will not allow these thoughts; I will fight. Christ will help me in this, and it is to Him that I will cry out:

— “Lord, cleanse me! Lord, save me! Lord, have mercy on me!”

And the Lord will help me.

Yes, He will help you, but He will not help you until you yourself fight against all this. In the life of Antony the Great we read how once he was fighting a temptation in desperation. He fought with such self-abandonment that at last he fell to the ground exhausted. Suddenly Christ appeared to him. The exhausted Antony asks Him:

— Lord, where wast Thou when I was fighting in despair?

Christ answers:

— I was standing beside you, so that if it were needed I might come to your help. But you did not need it; you did not give way, and you won.

In my view, each of us can learn repentance and come to confession with new victories. In this way we shall discover in the struggle with sin a field of battle that opens out ever wider and deeper. Only in this way can we receive forgiveness and grace, new strength from Christ, forgiveness for what we have begun to fight against. And overcome what we have not yet overcome.