Holy Confession (Repentance)

The Mystery of repentance, in which sins committed after baptism are confessed and forgiven. The penitent stands before an icon of Christ, often with the priest beside rather than facing them, and the Slavonic rite makes the priest say plainly that Christ stands here invisibly receiving the confession and that he is only a witness. At the end the priest lays his stole over the penitent’s head and reads the prayer of absolution. The Orthodox understanding is medical rather than judicial: the priest is a physician and confession is treatment, which is why it is so often joined to the counsel of a spiritual father. In the early Church sins were confessed publicly; private confession grew out of the monasteries.