Six Lectures on the History of the Mystery of Repentance: Against General Confession

Publication Data: Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Monastery, 1996
Format: softcover
Number of Pages: 48
Dimensions (l × w × h): 23.2 cm × 15.3 cm × 0.3 cm
Additional Information: black-and-white illustrations
ISBN: 978‒0‒88465‒128‒4

   
by Archpriest Valentin Sventitsky

“[This...]series of six lectures on the history of the Mystery (Sacrament) of Confession in the Orthodox Church were delivered by the author, Archpriest Valentin Sventitsky, in the Church of Hieromartyr Pancratius during the Great Fast of 1926. They were directed specifically against the abuse of so-called ‘general confessions’ in which a priest hears the confessions of a whole group of people, either all at once or each person only very briefly, and then reads a single general prayer of absolution over everyone. An understanding of the true nature of confession is especially important in our day when too often confession, particularly in Russia, is either largely dispensed with or else replaced by ‘general confessions,’ which are not uncommonly used today, particularly in Russia. The author was a spiritual son of Saint Anatoly the Younger of Optina, a popular defender of patristic spirituality, and a teacher of the Jesus Prayer. Father Valentin was arrested by the Bolsheviks in 1928 for his defense of the Faith and sent to the Siberian region of Kansk, where he fell ill, and reposed in the Lord on October 17, 1931.”
—“Foreword”

CONTENTS

Foreword
First Lecture
Second Lecture
Third Lecture
Fourth Lecture
Fifth Lecture
Sixth Lecture