Despre legătura dintre spovedanie şi împărtăşire

[Florin-Ionut]

În prealabil postat de catalin2

Nu stiu daca ai inteles, doar pacatele grave le marturiseau la episcop sau preot. Pacatele pe care le numim usoare le marturiseau in biserica, era ca spovedania din zilele noastre. De fapt era mai incomod, trebuiau sa le spuna sa le auda toti.

Da, dar cît timp a fost așa? Nu se știe sigur. A fost la începutul creștinismului, apoi au fost derogări pentru anumite biserici de la episcopii locului, cum e cazul Sfîntului Ioan de Kronstadt care a trăit acum vreun secol.

După ce s-a stabilizat Spovedania așa cum o știm astăzi, toți creștinii, de la preot la mirean și de la episcop la monah, s-au spovedit de fiecare dată înainte să se împărtășească? Mă îndoiesc. Uită-te cum astăzi practica Împărtășirii frecvente sau rare în Biserica Ortodoxă depinde de zona geografică și de ceea ce susțin părinții locului. Vorba lui Rafail Noica: observăm școala Printelui Cleopa, școala Părintelui Teofil Pîrîian sau mai știu eu care școală - vizavi de frecvența Împărtășirii.

Deci nu putem avea pretenția că în BO lucrurile au fost dintotdeauna așa cum le știm astăzi și, mai ales, în toate regiunile lumii. Mereu a fost o schimbare pe ici pe colo, chiar și în ritualul liturgic.

Și, ca să fim iarăși obiectivi și sinceri cu noi, cînd Pavel scrie ”să se cerceteze omul pe sine și așa să se apropie” nu se referă la actul Spovedaniei prin preot, ci la conștiința proprie care lăsa sau nu creștinul să se apropie de Potir. Nu se referă nici la faptul că nu l-ar fi lăsat pe creștin să vină la spovedit funcție de păcatele mai mari sau mai mici, ar fi absurd să credem așa ceva.

[Florin-Ionut]

Geo,

În prealabil postat de Geo_Geo79

La fiecare liturghie??? Hai acum in post merge dar in afara postului?? noi cei care suntem casatoriti este imposibil sa ne impartasim in fiecare liturgie, pr Cleopa spunea ca pt sf tainte trebuie curatenie trupeasca 3 zile inainte si 3 zile dupa...

Unde spune Cleopa de cele șase zile?

Am găsit o singură referință apropo de curăția trupească:

”Sfântul Ioan Postitorul, de exemplu, în al 8‑lea Canon al său spune că cel ce s‑a întinat în somn cu scurgere (semi*nală) o zi se scoate de la împărtăşanie, curăţindu‑se de întinăciune, şi va zice Psalmul 50 şi va face 49 de metanii.”

Aici nici măcar nu e vorba de cuplu, ci de accidentul poluției nocturne pentru care, iată, o singură zi se oprește de la Împărtășire. Deci pentru care motiv să fie oprit un cuplu de la facerea de copii 3 zile înainte și 3 zile după?

Si un alt aspect nu crezi ca se ajunge la un formalism daca te impartasesti in fiecare liturghie??? Eu nu zic sa ne impartasim rar sau des, dar trebuie sa fie un echilibru. Cel mai bine ne intrebam duhovnicii, cum e bine , pt ca ei ne cunosc sufletele cel mai bine.

Nu contează ce zici tu sau alți creștini sau chiar teologi. Contează ce spun Sfinții Părinți și ei toți spun într-un glas că trebuie să ne împărtășim des, dacă se poate de fiecare dată. Pe vremea Sfîntului Vasile cel Mare creștinii se împărtășeau aproape zilnic. Și mai făceau și copii... :)

Formalismul împărtășirii automate, fără căință, fără lupta împotriva celui rău care încearcă să te domine, fără rugăciune, fără acordul duhovnicului și - nu sînt 100% sigur - fără spovedanie nu e deloc folositor. Dar și mai grav e cînd ești un creștin practicant care participi la Liturghie și te împărtășești din an în Paști pentru că așa face lumea în general.

Mai Florine esti cumva sotul meu? caci gandesti la fel ca el.

[Florin-Ionut]

În prealabil postat de Geo_Geo79

Mai Florine esti cumva sotul meu? caci gandesti la fel ca el.

Nu, sînt soțul neveste-mi. :)

În prealabil postat de Florin-Ionut

Nu, sînt soțul neveste-mi. :)

Glumeam

Am avut aseara o discutie cu sotul meu si spunea acelasi lucru ca si tine...

[Florin-Ionut]

Părintele Alexander Schmemann vorbind despre legătura ce s-a stabilit între Spovedanie și Împărtășire de-a lungul istoriei:

From Fr. Alexander Schmemann's Report to the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America, Sunday of the Prodigal Son, 1972
(link to the full report: http://www.oca.org/DOCencyclical.asp?SID=12&ID=3).

”Eucharistic Decay and Renewal

It is impossible, and even unnecessary to present in this short report the questions of lay communion in all its dogmatical and historical aspects. What is essential can be summarized as follows:

It is a well-known and undisputed fact that in the early Church the communion of all the faithful, of the entire ecclesia, at each Liturgy was a self-evident norm. What must be stressed, however, is that this corporate communion was understood not only as an act of personal piety and personal sanctification but, first of all, as an act stemming primarily from one's very membership in the Church, as the fulfillment and actualization of that membership. The Eucharist was both defined and experienced as the "sacrament of the Church," the "sacrament of the assembly," the "sacrament of unity." "He mixed Himself with us," writes St. John Chrysostom, "and dissolved His body in us so that we may constitute a wholeness, be a body united to the Head." The early Church simply knew no other sign or criterion of membership but the participation in the sacrament. The excommunication from the Church was the excommunication from the eucharistic assembly in which the Church fulfilled and manifested herself as the Body of Christ. Communion to the Body and Blood of Christ was a direct consequence of Baptism, the sacrament of entrance into the Church, and there existed no other "condition" for that communion. The member of the Church is the one who is in communion with the Church in and through sacramental communion, and one early liturgical formula dismissed from the gathering, together with the catechumens and the penitents, all those who are not to receive communion. This understanding of communion, as fulfilling membership in the Church, can be termed ecclesiological. However obscured or complicated it became later, it has never been discarded; it remains forever the essential norm of Tradition.

One must ask therefore not about this norm, but about what happened to it. Why did we leave it so far behind us that a mere mention of it appears to some, and especially clergy, an unheard-of novelty, a shaking of the foundations? Why is it that for centuries nine out of ten Liturgies are being celebrated without communicants? - and this provokes no amazement, no frustration, whereas the desire to communicate more frequently, on the contrary, raises a real fear? How could the doctrine of a once-a-year communion develop within the Church, the Body of Christ, as an accepted norm, a departure from which can be but an exception? How, in other words, did the understanding of communion become so deeply individualistic, so detached from the Church, so alien to the eucharistic prayer itself: "and all of us partaking of the same Bread and Chalice unite one to another for the communion of the one Spirit..."? The reason for all this, however complex historically, is spiritually a simple one: it is the fear of profaning the Mystery, the fear of unworthy communion, of the desacralization of holy things. It is a fear which is, of course, spiritually justified, for "the one who eats and drinks unworthily drinks and eats his condemnation." This fear appeared soon after the victory of the Church over the pagan Empire, a victory which transformed Christianity into a mass religion, a state Church and a popular cult. If during the era of persecution the very belonging to the Church compelled each of her members to follow a "narrow path" and set between the Christian and "this world" a self-evident dividing line, now, with the entrance of the entire "world" into the Church, that line was abolished and there appeared a very real danger of a nominal, superficial, lukewarm and minimalistic understanding of Christian life. If before the very entrance into the Church was difficult, now, with obligatory inclusion of virtually everyone into the Church, it became necessary to establish internal checks and controls; it was around the sacrament that such controls developed.

One must stress, however, that neither the Fathers nor the liturgical texts can supply us with any encouragement for non-partaking of the Mysteries, nor do they even hint at such a practice. Emphasizing the holiness of communion and its "awful" nature, calling to a worthy preparation for it, the Fathers never endorsed nor approved the idea that since the Mystery is holy and awful, one must not approach it too often. To the Fathers, the view of the Eucharist as the sacrament of the Church, of her unity, fulfillment and growth, was still self-evident.

"We must not," writes St. John Cassian, "avoid communion because we deem ourselves to be sinful. We must approach it more often for the healing of the soul and the purification of the spirit, but with such humility and faith that considering ourselves unworthy... we would desire even more the medicine for our wounds. Otherwise it is impossible to receive communion once a year, as certain people do... considering the sanctification of heavenly Mysteries as available only to saints. It is better to think that by giving us grace, the sacrament makes us pure and holy. Such people manifest more pride than humility... for when they receive, they think of themselves as worthy. It is much better if, in humility of heart, knowing that we are never worthy of the Holy Mysteries we would receive them every Sunday for the healing of our diseases, rather than, blinded by pride, think that after one year we become worthy of receiving them."

With regard to an equally wide-spread theory, according to which there is a difference between the clergy and laity in approaching communion, so that the former are to receive it at each Liturgy, whereas the latter are discouraged from doing so, it is fitting to quote St. John Chrysostom, who more than anyone else, insisted on worthy preparation for communion: "There are cases," writes the great pastor, "when a priest does not differ from a layman, notably when one approaches the Holy Mysteries. We are all equally given them, not as in the Old Testament, when one food was for the priests and another for the people and when it was not permitted to the people to partake of that which was for the priest. Now it is not so: but to all is offered the same Body and the same Chalice..."

Let me repeat once more that it is simply impossible to find in Tradition a basis and justification for our present practice of extremely infrequent, if not yearly, communion of laity; all those who seriously and responsibly have studied our Tradition, all the best Russian liturgiologists and theologians, have seen in this practice a decay in Church life, a deviation from Tradition and the genuine foundations of the Church. And the most dreadful aspect of this decay is that it is justified and explained in terms of respect for the holiness of the sacrament, in terms of piety and reverence. For if it were so, the non-communicants would experience at least some sadness during the Liturgy, a frustration, a feeling of lacking fullness. In reality, however, this is simply not true. Generation after generation of Orthodox "attend" the Liturgy totally convinced that nothing more than attendance is required from them, that communion is simply not for them. And then, once a year, they fulfill their "obligation" and receive communion after a two-minute confession to a tired and exhausted priest. To see in all this a triumph of reverence, a protection of holiness, more than that - a norm, and not a downfall and a tragedy, is indeed incredible.

In some of our parishes those who expressed the desire to receive communion more frequently were subjected to a real persecution, were asked not to do it "for the sake of peace," were accused of deviation from Orthodoxy! I could quote parish bulletins explaining that since communion is for penitents, one ought not to receive it at Easter, for it "obscures" paschal joy. And the most tragic thing is that all this provokes no mystical horror, that apparently the Church herself becomes an obstacle on man's path to Christ! Truly - "when you shall see the abomination of desolation stand in the holy place..." (Matthew 24:15).

Finally, it would not be difficult to show that whenever and wherever a genuine renewal of the life of the Church has taken place it has always originated with what has been termed "eucharistic hunger," In the twentieth century there began a great crisis of Orthodoxy. There began an unheard of, unprecedented persecution of the Church and the apostasy of millions of people. And whenever this crisis was understood and perceived, there was a return to communion as the "focus of Christian life." This happened in communist Russia, as is attested by hundreds of witnesses; this happened in other centers of Orthodoxy and the diaspora. The movements of Orthodox youth in Greece, Lebanon, France have all grown out of a renewal of liturgical life. All that is genuine, living, churchly has been born from a humble and joyful response to the words of the Lord: "He that eats My flesh and drinks My blood, dwells in Me and I in him" (John 6:56)

[Florin-Ionut]

Now, by a great mercy of God, this eucharistic revival, this thirst for a more frequent, more regular, communion, and thus, the return to a more genuine life within the Church, has made its appearance in America. I am convinced that nothing would give a greater joy to the pastors and especially Bishops than this renewal, pulling us away from the spiritually dead controversies about "properties" and "rights," from the idea of the Church as a social-ethnic club with picnics and entertainment, from youth organizations in which religious life and interests are kept at a bare minimum. For, as I already said, no other foundation exists for the regeneration of the Church as a whole, and none can exist. The ethnic, national foundation is fading away. All that which is only custom, only form, an addition to life but not life itself, is disappearing. People are seeking the genuine, the true and the living. Therefore, if we are to live and grow, it is obviously only on the basis of the very essence of the Church, and this essence is the Body of Christ, that mystical unity into which we are integrated through partaking "of the one Bread and Chalice in the communion of the same Spirit..."

I am confident, therefore, that our Bishops, to whom God has entrusted above all care for the spiritual essence of the Church, will find the words proper to bless and to encourage this spiritual and sacramental renewal, proper to remind the Church of the immeasurably rich and immeasurably joyful content of her teaching about the Divine Mysteries.

All this, however, raises - with a new acuteness and depth - the question of the preparation for holy communion, and, first of all, of the place in that preparation for the Sacrament of Penance.

Penance and Holy Communion

When the communion of the entire congregation at each Liturgy, as an act expressing their very participation, in the Liturgy, ceased to be a self-evident norm and was replaced by the practice of a very infrequent, usually once-a-year, communion, it became natural for the latter to be preceded by the Sacrament of Penance i.e., confession and reconciliation with the Church through the prayer of absolution.

This practice, natural and self-evident in the case of infrequent, once-a-year, communion, led to the appearance in the Church of a theory according to which the communion of laity, different in this from the communion of clergy, is impossible without the Sacrament of Penance, so that confession is an obligatory condition - always and in all cases - for communion. I dare to affirm that this theory (which spread mainly in the Russian Church) not only has no foundation in Tradition, but openly contradicts the Orthodox doctrine of the Church, of the Sacrament of Communion and of that of Penance.

To be convinced of that, one has to recall, be it very briefly, the essence of the Sacrament of Penance. From the very beginning this sacrament was, in the consciousness and teaching of the Church, the sacrament of reconciliation with the Church of those excommunicated from her and this means of those excluded from the eucharistic assembly. We know that, at first, the very strict ecclesiastical discipline allowed for only one such reconciliation in one's lifetime, but that later, especially after the entrance into the Church of the entire population, this discipline was somewhat relaxed. In its essence, the Sacrament of Penance, as the sacrament of reconciliation with the Church, was for those only who were excommunicated from the Church for definite sins and acts clearly defined in the canonical tradition of the Church. This is still clearly stated in the prayer of absolution: "reconcile him with Thy Holy Church in Christ Jesus Our Lord..." (This, incidentally, is the prayer of absolution, used universally. As to the second one, unknown to the Eastern Orthodox Churches - "I, unworthy priest, by the power given unto me, absolve. . ." - is of Latin origin and was adopted in our liturgical books at the time of the domination of Orthodox theology by Western theology.)

All this, however, does not mean that the "faithful," i.e., the "non-excommunicated," were considered by the Church to be sinless. In the first place, according to the Church's teaching, no human being is sinless, with the exception of the Most Holy Mother of God, the Theotokos. In the second place, a prayer for forgiveness and remission of sins is an integral part of the Liturgy itself (cf. the Prayer of the Trisagion and the two prayers "of the faithful"). Finally, the Church always considered Holy Communion itself as given "for the remission of sins." Therefore, the issue here is not sinlessness, which no absolution can achieve, but the distinction always made by the Church between, on the one hand, the sins excommunicating a man from the Church's life of grace and, on the other hand, the "sinfulness" which is the inescapable fate of every man "living in the world and bearing flesh." The latter is, so to speak, "dissolved" in the Church's liturgy, and it is this sinfulness that the Church confesses in the "prayers of the faithful" before the offering of the Holy Gifts. Before the Holy Chalice itself, at the moment of receiving the Mysteries, we ask for forgiveness of "sins voluntary and involuntary, those in word and in deed, committed knowingly or unknowingly," and we believe that, in the measure of our repentance, we receive this forgiveness.

All this means, of course, and no one really denies it, that the only real condition for partaking of the Divine Mysteries is membership in the Church and, conversely, that membership in the Church is fulfilled in the partaking of the sacrament of the Church. Communion is given 'for the remission of sins, "'for the healing of the soul and body," and it implies, therefore, repentance, the awareness of our total unworthiness, and the understanding of communion as a heavenly gift which never can be "deserved" by an earthly being. The whole meaning of preparation for communion, as established by the Church ("The Rule for Holy Communion") is not, of course, in making man feel "worthy" but, on the contrary, in revealing to him the abyss of God's mercy and love ("I am not worthy, Master and Lord... yet since Thou in Thy love... dost wish to dwell in me, in boldness I come. Thou commandest, open the gates... and Thou wilt come in love... and enlighten my darkened reasoning. I believe that Thou wilt do this..."). Before the Lord's table the only "worthiness" of the communicant is that he has realized his bottomless "unworthiness." This, indeed, is the beginning of salvation.

It is therefore of paramount importance for us to understand that the transformation of the Sacrament of Penance into an obligatory condition for communion not only contradicts Tradition, but obviously mutilates it. It mutilates, in the first place, the doctrine of the Church by creating in her two categories of members, one of which is, in fact, excommunicated from the Eucharist, as the very content and fulfillment of membership, as its spiritual source. But then it is no longer surprising that those whom the Apostle called "fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God" (Ephesians 2:19) become again "worldly" (kosmiki, miriane), are "secularized" and their membership in the Church is measured and defined in terms of money ("dues") and "rights." But also mutilated is the doctrine of communion, which is understood then as the sacrament for a few "worthy ones" and no longer as the sacrament of the Church: of sinners who, by the infinite mercy of Christ, are always transformed into His Body. And finally, equally mutilated is the doctrine of penance. Transformed into a formal condition for communion, it begins more and more obviously to replace the real preparation for communion, that genuine inner repentance, which inspires all the prayers before communion. After a three-minute confession and absolution a man feels "entitled" to communion, "worthy" and even "sinless," feels, in other terms, that which is in fact the very opposite of true repentance.

But how then could such a practice have appeared and become a norm, defended today by many as truly Orthodox? To answer this question one must consider three factors. We have already mentioned one of them: that nominal and lukewarm approach to faith and piety of Christian society itself which led, at first, to an infrequent communion and, finally, reduced it to a once-a-year "obligation." It is clear that a person approaching the Divine Mysteries once a year must be really "reconciled" with the Church by means of an examination of his conscience and life in the Sacrament of Penance. The second factor is the influence on the Church of monasticism, which from the very beginning knew the practice of the "opening of thoughts," of the spiritual guidance by an experienced monk of a less-experienced one. But, and this is essential, such a spiritual father or "elder" was not necessarily a priest, for this type of spiritual guidance is connected with spiritual experience and not priesthood.

[Florin-Ionut]

In the Byzantine monastic typika of the 12th-13th centuries, a monk is forbidden both to approach the Chalice and to abstain from it by himself, of his own will, without the permission of his spiritual father, for "to exclude oneself from communion is to follow one's own will." In women's monasteries the same power belongs to the abbess. Thus we have here a confession of a non-sacramental type, confession based upon spiritual experience and permanent guidance. But this type of confession had a strong impact on sacramental confession. At a time of spiritual decadence (which can be seen in its true scope and meaning in the canons of the so-called Council in Trullo, 6th century A.D.) monasteries became centers of spiritual care and guidance for the laity. In Greece, even today, not every priest has the right to hear confessions but only those who are especially authorized by the Bishop. Yet for the laity this spiritual counseling naturally led to sacramental confession. We must stress, however, that not every parish priest is capable of such spiritual counseling, which implies and presupposes a deep spiritual experience, for without that experience "counseling" may lead, and in fact often leads, to genuine spiritual tragedies. What is important here is that the sacramental penance became somehow connected with the idea of spiritual guidance, solution of "difficulties" and "problems," and that all this in the present conditions of our parish life, of "mass" confessions concentrated during some evening of Great Lent and reduced to a few minutes, is hardly possible and does more harm than good. Spiritual guidance, especially in our time of deep spiritual crisis, is necessary, but to be genuine, deep, useful, it must be disconnected from sacramental confession, although the latter must obviously be its ultimate goal.

The third and decisive factor was, of course, the influence of the Western Scholastic and juridical understanding of penance. Much has been written about the "western captivity" of Orthodox theology but few people realize the depth and the real meaning of the distortions to which Western influence led in the life of the Church and, above all, in the understanding of sacraments. This is especially obvious in the Sacrament of Penance. Here the distortion consisted in that the whole meaning of the sacrament was shifted from repentance and confession to "absolution" understood juridically. Western Scholastic theology transposed into juridical categories the very concept of sin and, accordingly, the concept of absolution, as dependent not so much on the reality of repentance, but on the power of the priest. If in the initial Orthodox understanding of the Sacrament of Penance the priest is the witness of repentance and, therefore the witness of the fulfilled "reconciliation with the Church in Christ Jesus. . .," the Latin legalism puts the emphasis on the power of the priest to absolve. Hence the practice, totally alien to Orthodox doctrine, yet quite popular today, of "absolutions" without confession. The initial distinction between sins (which because they excommunicate from the Church require a sacramental reconciliation with her) and sinfulness (not leading to excommunication) was rationalized by Western Scholasticism in the distinction between the so-called mortal sins and the so-called venial sins. The first ones, by depriving man of the "state of grace" require sacramental confession and absolution; the others require only an inner repentance and contrition. In the Orthodox East, however, and especially in Russia (under the influence of the Latinizing theology of Peter Moghila and his followers), this theory resulted in a simple, compulsory and juridical connection between confession and communion.

And it is ironic indeed that the most obvious of all Latin "infiltrations" is viewed by so many Orthodox as an Orthodox norm while a mere attempt to re-evaluate it in the light of the genuine Orthodox doctrine of Church and sacraments is denounced as "Roman Catholic."

[DragosP]

Alte opinii: http://www.doxologia.ro/puncte-de-ve...rtasim-mai-des.

[dobrin7m]

În prealabil postat de DragosP

Alte opinii: http://www.doxologia.ro/puncte-de-ve...rtasim-mai-des.

da, frumos spus. iata un articol folositor.