entrance:

The Lord Jesus Christ is the one who established the sacrament of repentance after his resurrection from the dead when he appeared to his disciples and said to them: “Peace be to you.” As the Father has sent me, so I send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; whose sins you retain, they are retained” (John 20:21-23). The Lord gave the Apostles and their successors His divine authority to resolve and bind sins, with the power and action of the Holy Spirit, and the shepherds of the Church exercised this authority, as they examined the conditions of sinners and guided those who repented. “I urge you, beloved, to confess your sins as long as you are in the present life, where the forgiveness of sins granted by the priests is acceptable and acceptable. With God also” (Cyprian, On the Fallen 29).

• a- Repentance is a divine sacrament through which the repentant, through the power of the Holy Spirit, obtains forgiveness for all his sins that he committed after baptism and confessed through the priest. His justification is renewed, he is sanctified again, and he is reconciled with God again. This is why the sacrament of repentance is considered a second baptism, that is, the sacrament of man's reconciliation with God after baptism.
• B- Through the three sacraments, Baptism, Chrismation and Eucharist, a person belongs to Christ and joins the Church. He is called to do this affiliation in his life and bring it to his perfection, by turning his entire being to God by continually putting off the old man and abiding in the new man, until he reaches, by the grace of God, “the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). But through sin he falls from this call, and for this reason all those who “did not preserve the grace of new birth (baptism) without fault and fell from divine grace because of their sins, can once again obtain God’s compassion and love by returning to the priests and confessing to them their sins and deserving of forgiveness” (Pope Leo, Epistle 32:85).

In repentance, a person changes and turns to God. This is why repentance applies to those who have sinned and turned away from the Lord, as well as to all who live with the Lord. It remains a permanent invitation until death for every believer, because man is in a constant shift towards God. Repentance is not just remorse, but it includes all aspects of a person’s life, and it consists of a person strengthening himself to emerge from the darkness of sin into the light of righteousness and from the darkness of transgression to obedience to the Lord and keeping his commandments. “He who loves me keeps my commandments” (John 14:15).

The foundations and components of repentance

Repentance is based on three foundations:

1. Heart crushing. “Sorrow that is according to the will of God produces repentance for salvation without regret” (2 Corinthians 7:10).
2. Firm faith in the Lord and hope in His compassion. For “he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9), and that there will be “great joy in heaven over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:7). The prodigal son, who is a model for the fallen after baptism, “after he went to a strange land and truly realized the magnitude of the evil of his fall from his father’s house, he returned to it.” As for his father, he did not hate him, but rather accepted him with open hands... because he was a father, not a ruler. That's why he held a great celebration. This reward was not a punishment for evil and sin, but rather a reward for return and transformation” (Chrysostom, First Treatise on Repentance 4).
3. A firm determination to reform his life. Forgiveness of sins alone is not enough for repentants to obtain salvation, but they must produce “fruits worthy of repentance” (Matthew 3:7-8).

The importance and necessity of recognition

When this repentance occurs in a person, it creates in him a feeling of the necessity of confessing and acknowledging his sins. “If we confess our sins, he (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Confession begins with a deep repentance within the person, ends with a sincere acknowledgment of sins, and completes a serious reform of conduct. “Come, let us reason together, says the Lord. Even though your sins were as scarlet, they would be as white as snow, and though they were red as the dye of worms, they would become like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)

Confession takes place in the church

• a. Sin distances a person from God, from himself, and from the Church. Therefore, the act of reconciliation that occurs through repentance must also take place in the communion of the Church. Therefore, it is not only an individual work carried out by the believer towards himself, but like all the sacraments, it is an work done in the company of the church represented by the priest. Therefore, confession must be made before a priest who is qualified by the church to receive the confessions of believers.
• B. By confessing before a priest, the basic purpose of confession is achieved, because the repentant:

1.  
   1. He receives forgiveness of his sins at the hands of the confessing priest. Thus, the repentant person is transformed from a person who was distanced from God by sin into a person whom repentance turned to God.
   2. He reconciles with the church. Because the sin that distances a person from God distances him from the Church.
   3. He tends to reform himself through what the knowing father imposes on him and the instructions he receives from him.

How to confess

• a. Some believers resort to an alternative to confession. For example, some of them ask the priest to absolve sins (prayer on the head) before Communion, and some of them are satisfied with repeating the prayer of confession, “I believe, O Lord, and I confess...” which some priests recite in the Divine Mass immediately before Communion. The true, correct confession is neither one nor the other. Because how can a priest absolve a sin that has not been confessed before him? Even if the father of confession cannot be found, this does not mean that resorting to the previously mentioned methods is an alternative to confession.
• B. Valid confession in the church is an individual, sincere confession before a priest. In it, the repentant confesses all his sins, opens his heart and reveals his thoughts so that he can rest and obtain spiritual guidance and directions that show him how to overcome his sins, thus obtaining absolution for sins at the hands of the priest.
• C. Those who are in danger of death are unable to confess. Therefore, the priest grants them absolution from their sins and gives them the precious body and blood of the Lord without hesitation.

Metropolitan Boulos Yazigi
From the message of the Archbishopric of Aleppo