This concise guide to confession was written on the basis of fifteen years of experience in spiritual work with Orthodox Christians of different ages, educational backgrounds, professions, and ethnic origins. The purpose of the guide is to present the subject of confession in as understandable a way as possible to a broader circle of believers, so that they may prepare themselves properly for the Holy Mystery and thereby make easier for the priest the responsible duty of hearing confessions. The text represents “first aid” on the subject of confession, which is why it has been written concisely, in accessible language, with many accompanying examples and with as little entry as possible into complex theological themes.
The text was originally published in the newspaper Pravoslavlje (1 March 2026), as part of cooperation with the Missionary Department of the Archbishopric of Belgrade-Karlovci in the area of publication of missionary texts.
Among the Serbian people there exists a well-known proverb that we often hear, especially among the elderly. It says: Health comes first!
This proverb is entirely correct if we clarify and precisely determine which type of health is being referred to. Namely, most people who cite this saying think exclusively of bodily health, which, we will all agree, is undoubtedly very important. This form of health enables us to live a quality life and to carry out our daily activities without hindrance; as such, it represents a gift from God that should be carefully preserved and nurtured. Yet external, bodily health, however significant and necessary it may be, has its own “expiration date”—sooner or later it will leave us. Ultimately, earthly life itself has physical limitations that will one day bring an end to bodily health even for the healthiest person in the world. There is, however, a form of health that has no temporal limitations and that is incomparably more important. This is spiritual health, that is, the health of our soul. If we struggle constantly to achieve bodily health until the grave, then we should struggle even more intensely for spiritual health (which must be distinguished from psychological well-being), since it endures beyond the grave, for the soul is immortal. This means that the attainment of spiritual health is our primary task, and it is precisely in relation to this form of health that the proverb is fulfilled in its fullest sense: Health comes first!
What constitutes the health and illness of the soul? Simply put, a healthy soul is adorned with virtues and all its faculties operate properly, whereas a sick soul is disfigured by sin and vices, and its faculties are distorted and function improperly. Therefore, the logic of attaining spiritual health is quite simple: it consists in adhering to the natural, virtuous way of life and turning away from the unnatural, sinful, and vicious one. The aim of such a life is not merely that we become moral people, but that we become people of God (let us recall here the well-known words of our holy Patriarch Pavle: Let us be people!). If, however, we choose the opposite path—that is, if we violate God’s commandments and live in sin—then we will only have the name that we live, while we are dead (Rev. 3:1). For although the soul is immortal (by the grace of God), there is also a certain kind of death of the soul, namely its darkening by sin, which deprives it of true communion with God if it remains in such a state eternally.
At this point it is instructive to recall a thought of the great saint of the Church, St. Gregory Palamas, who in a homily for the feast of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple, speaking about the mystery of the hypostatic union of the divine and human nature in Christ the God-man, says that “for God, in truth, only one thing is impossible—that He should unite Himself with what is impure before it has been purified.” In another homily for the same feast, the saint states that “it is not possible to become truly close to God unless we are purified […]”. These are words that are both clear and admonitory, reminding us how essential it is to cleanse ourselves of the impurity of sin and to acquire spiritual health as soon as possible. Yet this cannot be achieved without God’s help and without our own effort.
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In all of the above, the key issue is our encounter with God in eternity—those whose souls are healthy will experience that encounter as eternal light, while those whose souls are sick will experience it as eternal darkness. Let us use here a natural analogy to explain how an encounter with God, who is Light, may be experienced by someone as darkness. In our created world the primary symbol of light is the sun, which illuminates and warms all people without distinction. Nevertheless, we do not all experience its rays in the same way: for healthy eyes they produce a pleasant sensation, while for diseased eyes they cause discomfort and pain.
Spiritual health, however, is of great importance not only for eternity but also for this present world, into which we have been born and which we inhabit for a time. Indeed, spiritual health is the foundation for bodily health and for the inner peace, joy, and tranquility that so many people seek in this life. Put differently, spiritual illness is directly reflected both in the emergence of bodily diseases and in inner unrest and anxiety. How many cases are there in which people have fallen physically ill and suffered from so-called psychosomatic diseases because their souls had previously become sick with pride, selfishness, resentment, envy, or vainglory? How many examples are there of the direct impact of spiritual illness upon the body through sins such as drunkenness, drug abuse, and sexual immorality? How many instances are there in which “the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (Ezek. 18:2), so that because of the sins of their ancestors various bodily ailments appear in their descendants even to the third and fourth generation? Such cases are as frequent as they are admonitory, and they clearly testify both to the superiority of spiritual health over bodily health and to the connection between them.
Cleanliness is half of health—this is another proverb worth mentioning. We hear it somewhat less frequently, mostly in medical circles. It is also true, and not only when the body is concerned but when the soul is concerned as well. We have already stated that spiritual impurity is sin, which functions as a kind of parasite that pollutes and poisons our inner being. If this parasite is not removed from the soul, over time it produces a spiritual disease that becomes more difficult to heal the longer it lasts. Particularly difficult to heal is the condition in which a person becomes accustomed to sin to such a degree that it becomes his second nature—in that case we are no longer speaking merely of a committed sin, but of a passion that has taken root in a person and attached itself to his soul. In medical terminology, if a person commits a particular sin only occasionally, it is an acute condition; if he commits a certain sin regularly over a long period of time, it is a chronic condition of the soul’s illness; and if a person becomes enslaved to sin to the extent that it has become his second nature, then we are dealing with the terminal stage of a spiritual disease.
Just as the need for cleanliness is obvious when it comes to the body, it should be all the more evident when it comes to the soul. If, in the case of the body, the signal for cleansing is given by contact with dirt, the appearance of the skin, or an unpleasant odour, in the case of the soul the signal is given by the conscience, which is an unfailing teacher that should always be heeded. Every human being possesses a conscience, whether believer or unbeliever—it is the first and fundamental educator of the soul. If the voice of conscience is not sufficiently audible, this is a symptom of a serious spiritual illness; and if the conscience has, as it were, been seared (cf. 1 Tim. 4:2) and no longer signals the need for the purification of the soul from sin, then this is a grave spiritual condition from which only the Lord can rescue a person through extraordinary intervention. And such “surgical” interventions from above can indeed be painful…
If, as the proverb says, “cleanliness is half of health,” where then is the other half? When it comes to the body the answer is clear, but where, figuratively speaking, is the “other half” of health when the soul is concerned? It lies in the action of the divine energy of God, which comes to dwell in a person steadily when he has made sufficient effort to cleanse himself from sin and to turn towards the path of keeping God’s commandments. In fact, that first half—our effort to cleanse the soul—is only the prerequisite for receiving the second, principal “half,” through which we become whole human beings in the true sense of the word. If the “first half” is our effort to purify ourselves from the filth of sin, the “second half” is the divine grace that is given as a reward for our effort and that makes us truly healthy, sanctified, and enlightened human beings, exactly as we are meant to be. The attainment of such a grace-filled state is the principal goal of human life—for man was created precisely in order to acquire the grace of God steadfastly and, as such, to enter eternity. Whoever attains this is successful, even if in this world he were homeless and achieved nothing else; whoever does not attain it is unsuccessful and, spiritually speaking, utterly impoverished, even if he were to gain all the goods and honours that this world can offer.
The goal of acquiring the grace of God is achieved through a kind of “spiritual treatment” that takes place within the greatest healing institution in the world—the Church—in which every spiritual illness, weakness, and wound can be healed. In the “treatment” offered by this healing institution, the first step is repentance and confession, which must be accompanied by the awareness that our soul is, to a greater or lesser extent, diseased by sin, and that the wounds of sin can be healed only within the ascetical and liturgical embrace of the Church.
To be continued…
