Repentance

ANDREI PSAREV

In Orthodox thought repentance is the blessed mourning of a person and longing for God (penthos) following after a sense of having moved away from him. It is a con­version to God and, as a result, is what scripture describes as radical change of mind or heart (metanoia, see Mk. 1.15). Christ came to save sinners having called them to repentance and belief in his gospel (Mt. 9.13). The parable of the prodigal son (Lk. 15.11) outlines the stages of how Orthodox understand the process of repen­tance: contrition, aversion from sin, repu­diation of evil, confession, reconciliation with God and one’s neighbor.

The words from the apostle about the impossibility of repentance for those who, by sinning, crucify Christ again (Heb. 6.4–6) reflect a dilemma of the early church; for in the 3rd and 4th centuries the Novatianists and Donatists permanently excluded from Eucharistic communion those who were guilty of serious sins. The greater church would not accept this rigorist approach, having prescribed in its canons various terms of abstinence from the Eucharist on account of grave sins; but no transgressor was ever to be deprived of the Eucharist at the time of their death (Nicea 1. Canon 13). There are no sins that may prevent a person from entering into the dedicated life of repentance which is monasticism (Quinisext Council. Canon 43). Repentance has been called in Orthodoxy the “second baptism.”

Canon 12 of St. Gregory the Wonder­worker (3rd century) defines how the church classifed penitents. In early times certain classes of sinners were debarred from full Eucharistic membership and had to stand apart from the community, in the narthex or outside the church building, sometimes for many years. St. Basil the Great (4th century) was not just occupied with the impact of sin on an individual, but also with the spiritual health of the entire congregation (St. Basil. Canon 88). In the same way as sin injures the body of the whole ecclesiastical community, through the healing of each member the entire church body acquires reconciliation with God (1Cor. 12.26).

Although public ceremonies of repen­tance were already common in the time of St. Basil the Great, private repentance, appropriate for particular sins, was also in use (St. Basil. Canon 34). The successor of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Nectarius of Constantinople, was the first major hier­arch known to formally abolish the ecclesi­astical office of public repentance in Constantinople in the late 4th century. By the 9th century, after the triumph of the monks over the iconoclasts, the practice of private monastic confession became stan­dard. Nevertheless, the correspondence of Archbishop Demetrios Chomatenos demonstrates that the arranging of public penance was occasionally known even in 13th-century Byzantium. Current Orthodox practice is that a Christian repents secretly of personal sins, while a more public acknowl­edgment of repentance may be appropriate in case of widely known offenses. It is Christ himself who receives the believer’s repen­tance. The priest, acting as confessor, is only a witness, a spiritual therapist who gives advice, or who may prescribe a peni­tential remedy (epitimion). The church annually assigns the time of Great Lent as an occasion for repentance. During this forty-day period Christians are called to turn from self-love towards deeper love of God and one’s neighbor. Various ascetic and pious deeds – fasting, almsgiving, extended prayer with tears – may go along with the Orthodox practice of repentance.

According to the desert fathers, St. Greg­ory Palamas, and other church teachers, repentance signifies the beginning of the process of rebirth. Through this process a person becomes a participant in divine nature (2Pet. 1.4). Repentance is not simply a matter of rejecting sin and leading a life of virtue, but rather a transformation that helps the person to discover in the soul’s depths the very likeness of God.

SEE ALSO: Asceticism; Canon Law; Confes­sion; Metanie (Metanoia)

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Antonopoulos Nektarios, Archimandrite (2000) Return. Athens: Akritas Publications. Chrysostomos, Archbishop of Etna (1997) Repentance. Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies.

Chryssavgis, J. (1990) Repentance and Confession.

Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press. Erickson, J. H. (1991) “Penitential Discipline in the Orthodox Canonical Tradition,” in Challenge of Our Past. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

Melling, D. J. (2001) “Metanoia,” in The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity. Oxford: Blackwell.