The Mystery of Confession

[Liudmilla]

The instance I discribed above was practiced by Vladika Mitrophan in his parish church. I think he employed a sort of economia, because I hardly think it's fair to expect that a priest after a long vespers should actually stand there and confess 40-50, and sometimes more, people one at a time. That's not counting the 20 or so children. As it is it took forever to get thru just the absolution part. I remember still standing there at 11 one night and he still had a bunch to go. I remember another priest who did individual people on such a occassion, they were still there are 2 in the morning. Many ended up not going to communion or coming back in the morning for confession...which just held up the service. Even if he had started early(which he did), he could not have done it in a timely manner. That is why I believe Vladika required a previous full confession before coming to this "general" confession. I think that even Fr Seraphim would find nothing wrong in doing it this way.

And by the way those who tried to "sneak in" were always caught and had to do a longer confession anyway once they got up there. Rather embarassing as everyone knew your "offense" then.

[Justin Kissel]

Liudmilla

Very interesting Some of what you say also reminds me of the public confession that was done in the early Church, though a bit more conservative in this case (whispering a prayer of repentance for one's guilt).

EDIT--I had said "a prayer of forgiveness"... though I meant "a prayer asking for forgiveness"... I changed the above to more clearly say what I meant.

[Liudmilla]

One further note........the sort of general confession as I described was not meant for people who go "once a year" or even every once in a while. This was usually used in instances where people tended to go to confession frequently. In this instance a priest would be familiar with the spiritual condition of the confessor. It would be up to the priest at this point to know whether or not he needed to ask more or allow the person to participate in the general confession. In my experience these were not people who were infrequent confessors, most were the type that went to confession for most holidays and sometimes in between.

While there were those who tried to "get away with it", the priest was familiar enough with who they were to not allow the "deception".

[Seraphim Reeves]

I was actually surprised to find this thread, as I was under the impression that the whole phenomenon of "general confession" was a recent Roman Catholic thing. Since Vatican II, a lot of whacky things have become common in the RCC, including the practice of "general confession", which really is not so much a confession as a general absolution. My understanding was that in times past, the only time this was practiced (a priest giving absolution to a large group) was in emergencies when individual confession was impossible (say, if the priest was on a sinking ship with a crowd of people who were most likely going to die with him), and always with the understanding that if they all managed to get out of the emergency situation alive, they had to individually go to confession afterwards. Now, "general confession" is quite common in a lot of Catholic churches.

Suffice it to say, I'm sad to hear similar things are going on in Orthodox Churches, because I don't think you're getting away with anything by going to such a service.

Seraphim

[rebecca]

For major feast days in my parish, we're are allowed longer periods of time between confession and communion. For instance, if you go to confession on Palm Sunday or any time after that, you can go to Communion on Holy Thursday, Holy Saturday, and Pascha without going to confession again (as long as you prepare yourself sufficiently each time).