1,352
edits
Changes
→Confidentiality
:For if you reveal them, firstly, you will be suspended or daresay deposed completely by the Ecclesiastical Canons, and according to political laws you will be thrown in jail for the rest of your life and have your tongue cut out. Secondly, you become a reason for more Christians not to confess, being afraid that you will reveal their sins, just as it happened during the time of Nektarios of Constantinople when the Christians did not want to confess on account of a Spiritual Father who revealed the sin of a woman. The divine Chrysostom both witnessed these things and suffered because of them on account of his trying to convince the people to confess. It is impossible for me to describe in words how much punishment this brings upon you, who are the cause of these things."<ref>St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite, ''Exomologitarion: A Manual of Confession'', trans. Fr. George Dokos (Greece: Uncut Mountain Press, 2006), p. 191f.</ref>
St. [[John of the Ladder]] writes:
:"At no time do we find God revealing the sins which have been confessed to Him, lest by making these public knowledge, He should impede those who would confess and so make them incurably sick."<ref>St. John of the Ladder, ''The Ladder of Divine Ascent'', trans. Fr. Lazarus Moore (Brookline, MA: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1979), p. 243.</ref>
==General Confession==