Children's confession. Orthodox education of children. Preparing Children for Communion

Archpriest Alexy Uminsky. Do no harm

Sometimes a very small child comes to confession, and when the priest talks to him about sins, he looks at the priest and does not understand what is at stake. Then the priest asks him: "Have you ever felt ashamed?" “Yes,” - the child answers and begins to tell when he was ashamed: when he did not obey his mother, when he took something without permission ... And then the priest says to him: “This is a sin, since your conscience tells you, that you did something bad. " Shame is the very first indicator of sinfulness for both adults and children.

But it's not just "bad deeds" that darken a child's life. Sometimes “bad thoughts” worry kids more than bad deeds. Children are horrified that these thoughts enter their heads. They tell their loved ones: “Someone is forcing me to say bad words, but I don’t want to do that.” This is a very important point.

Parents should definitely use it to start a conversation with their children. “You know, you need to tell about it in confession. This evil one wants to turn your will in his direction. If you don’t fight him (don’t pray, don’t cross yourself), he can overcome you, ”the adults must tell him. After all, if a child talks to his parents about bad thoughts, it means that he has confidence in them, it means that he does not withdraw into himself. Such a child should immediately be helped to understand that sin and he are different things, that evil thoughts are not his thoughts and should not be taken as his own. “This is not mine, I am not afraid of these thoughts, I can defeat them,” - this is how a child should be taught to think.

Many children talk to adults about bad thoughts. They are confused by dreams, thoughts during prayer ... And if they try to tell their parents about this, then this is the most convenient time to put weapons in their hands for spiritual struggle: the sign of the cross, prayer, confession. And when a child begins to pray, he looks like evil thoughts go away through prayer. If your thoughts persist, you can make an effort, pray longer, and still win. The very ability to overcome sin is very important for a child. To realize his victory means to realize the power over sin, to feel the help of God. When this happens, a person grows spiritually.

Are children sinless?

Let us recall the reasoning of Blessed Augustine. If a baby is sinless, why does he bite the breast of his mother, who is feeding him with milk? From the moment when he has not yet learned to discern what is good and what is evil, he has certain skills for evil. Because a person is not born sinless. The darkening of our sinful nature gravitates over us. Original sin is forgiven us in Baptism, but the consequences of sin remain, and we must correct them by our own will. Man is initially good and good by nature, because the Lord created him good and striving for good, he is the image and likeness of God. But the Apostle Paul says: The good that I want I don't do, but the evil I don't want I do(Rom. 7, 19). A child is born an old man, but he is not able to independently conduct spiritual warfare, so he leads it together with his parents.

About parental "clergy"

Parents invest the first skills of spiritual struggle in a person. Parents explain to their children “what is good and what is bad”, how to act and how not to, how to pray correctly and how to fast. They lead children by their spiritual experience. In other words, they provide the spiritual guidance that an adult seeks from a spiritual father. The father and mother explain to the child what sin is, teach him to confess, tell him what conscience is and what the fear of God is. For example, everything written by Abba Dorotheus for adults can be retelling to children, even the smallest. This wonderful book of soulful teachings is essential for any teacher and, of course, parents. There are chapters of the teachings "About that should not lie", "About not judging your neighbor", "About conscience", "About humility" ... All these are components of the educational process. These spiritual concepts should be taught to the child by the parents at a very early age. And this is spiritual guidance. If the father and mother themselves live a spiritual life, they understand well what Abba Dorotheos left us, then they will be able to pass this on to the children.

Sometimes parents do not know the answer to a difficult question, but this also happens in pastoral practice. If the priest does not know the answer to the question of his spiritual child, he says: "Let's pray with you together, and I will ask someone from more experienced people how to help you." Parents do the same when they cannot answer correctly. There is nothing to be ashamed of here. Especially when a person of a higher spiritual life stands above you and your child, who is listened to in your family. Your own reverent attitude towards the clergy and in the child fosters a sense of humility and reverence for the shrine, for the holy order.

Parents about punishment

Children know very well that if they commit a sin, they are punished by their parents. (True, there are parents who, in anger and irritation, punish even babies who scream and prevent them from sleeping.) We all know the state of fatigue and breakdown, but we understand that this state is abnormal. It is necessary to punish the child from the moment when he understands what punishment is, when the punishment is capable of enlightening, stopping, warning.

In the Gospel we read about the Last Judgment, the Second Coming and that the greatest punishment for a person is excommunication from God. Unfortunately, we, people living on earth now, are more afraid of earthly punishment than of what will be told to us our fate of being excommunicated from God at the Last Judgment. We are afraid when the Lord visits us with sorrows, although such punishment is benevolent, it gives us the opportunity to wake up and turn to face God. This punishment is not like revenge or punishment that overtakes criminals. What we are so much afraid of and call punishment is translated from Church Slavonic as "teaching" (mandate, decree).

Daily news is broadcasted on television and radio, from which we learn about the tragic events taking place in different parts of the Earth, and one day my child asked: “Dad, so many people are dying. Why does the Lord allow all this? " “Imagine that you are driving a car at high speed,” I tried to answer, “and you see a sign that prohibits driving faster than forty kilometers per hour. You know what it means, but without slowing down, you continue to move. Further you see another sign that warns drivers that there is a slippery road ahead. Ignoring him, you drive on at the same speed. And then you see the "Break" sign. But you were driving a hundred kilometers per hour and you fly into the abyss at breakneck speed ...

Can we say that God punished you? God warned you. You saw the signs that said how to avoid danger. And this end is the result of your behavior. You broke the Law, and it made you unhappy. Self-will destroys harmony between man and God. And the lack of harmony is suffering (through illness, through the loss of loved ones), but not a vengeful reproach. The worst punishment is when you - well-fed, rich and healthy - go straight to hell. "

“How do you want,” I asked my son after this story, “that the Lord would punish and save you through punishment, or that He would not punish you and forget about you? After all, I also punish you when you misbehave. I am doing this so that you will correct yourself. After being punished, a person becomes smarter. Or would you like me to stop paying attention to you? Imagine that one day you took money from me without asking and bought yourself an ice cream. I didn’t notice, but you thought: “How good. You can always take money without asking. ” Then you took something else, then another ... And then you became a thief, and you were put in jail. So, maybe it would be better if I punished you when you first took money from me for ice cream? "

“Yes, that would be better,” my child agreed.

Why do we confess?

The answer to this question is rooted in the parents' own spiritual experience. All that they can do themselves, they must pass on to their child.

If a person does not have a spirit of repentance in himself, if he does not confess, but argues: “My life has already taken shape, but I want to raise the child correctly: so that he goes to church, to confession, to Sunday school, and I somehow I will live without it ”, - then he will not be able to explain to his child why it is necessary to confess and what confession is. What a child does not see in his parents, what he cannot acquire through them, he will acquire only in adulthood and under such life circumstances through which the Lord Himself brings him to Himself. Any other knowledge will be superficial, shallow and quickly lost.

It is difficult to explain to a child why we confess, even when we do not read the Gospel to him. And if before going to bed we have such reading in the family tradition, albeit not daily, but at least frequent, then the question “why do we need to confess” usually does not arise for the child. The gospel begins with the words: Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand(Matt. 3, 2). Repentance is the path of spiritual life that leads us to salvation. Life without repentance cannot be called faith in God; salvation is impossible without repentance.

True, much more often children have to explain not "why?" you need to confess, but "how?" The child does not ask: "Why do you need to eat soup?" Rather, he will ask: "How to make soup?" And mom will try to answer this question and teach the child to cook soup. Not a question "why?" motivates, but the question "how?". "How should you confess?" is a matter of inner spiritual life. A person who lives in repentance will surely find words suitable for an answer for his child, the meaning of which will not be superficial. After all, confession is an inner need of every person.

How can I help my child?

If the family has a confessor, has its own spiritual tradition, it is not difficult to solve the problem of preparing children for confession, it is more difficult, helping, not to harm the child's soul. Some parents write their own confessions for the child. And now a seven-year-old boy, who has just learned to write, comes to the priest, and gives a note written in an adult handwriting with complex sentences and correctly placed punctuation marks. All parents need to know that this should not be done. For some reason, adults are very worried that the child will not remember all sins before confession, and they try to remind him of everything that he has forgotten. But the Lord does not forgive us our sins by quantity. Do not be afraid that the child will not tell everything. If he sincerely feels himself in confession, but has not remembered everything, there is nothing to worry about. After all, God tolerates us adults, although we do not immediately confess all our sins. Moreover, if the Lord showed us who we really are, we simply would not bear the awareness of our sinfulness. Having mercy on us, the Lord gives everyone the opportunity to gradually fight the sins that we have realized. There is no need for an adult or a child to confess that which he does not see or realize in himself. The child has the opportunity to overcome in himself only what he realizes as a sin, and there is no need to do it instead of him. Rather, our children provide us with an opportunity to mourn the sins of our youth. When we see in them what we have safely forgotten in ourselves, having erased it from our memory, we understand what makes us again and again carry the spirit of repentance, cry before God and pray that that which distorted and darkened us , did not hurt the souls of our children. Maybe this is how the Lord reminds us of our sins.

Of course, you need to talk to your child before confession. You can start like this: “Let's remember what we had. Let's pray together to God and ask Him for forgiveness for our sins. Even if you are afraid to tell about something, the Lord sees your sin, knows about it, but if you tell about it in confession, He will certainly forgive you. Only you two, God and you, will know about this sin. And nobody else. When we hide our sin, it stays in the soul forever and can take root. Just as weeds, if they are not pulled out of the ground when they are still small, can "take over" the whole vegetable garden, so unconfessed sin gradually enmeshes our entire nature. If the child trusts his parents (for such conversations, it is very important to have children's trust), then you can discuss bad deeds together. It is possible in a delicate form to remind the child of his mistakes, but in no case it is impossible to confess instead of the child.

And you also can't tell the priest about the child's sins, he just doesn't need it. And, of course, in no case should you approach the priest after confession and ask: “Did he tell you about this? And about this? " After such conversations, the child will lose all trust in the confessor. Experience shows that the more a child trusts his parents, the more he will trust a priest, even a stranger. You can discuss some family problem with the priest, but informing your child about your child is not good.

Children quite often are internally ready for confession, but cannot find the courage to take the first step. Then the priest, knowing their inner attitude, can carefully and tactfully help them in this. Here is the area of ​​the mysterious grace-filled action of God on the human soul, which we do not know and which is incomprehensible to our mind.

When parents try to give some advice to the priest before confession, it means that they shift their parental responsibilities onto the priest. Raising a child with love, patience is the task of parents, which the Lord Himself entrusted to us, and the priest has a different vocation.

The Lord said: If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, then if someone has risen from the dead, they will not believe(Luke 16:31). If children don't listen to their parents, who will they listen to? We, parents, must, having gained patience and courage, carry our cross, raising children for the Kingdom of Heaven and not invade the area where the Lord Himself acts.

At what age should you confess?

Many parents think that the sooner the child begins to confess, the better. However, the Orthodox Church, knowing by her spiritual experience the nature of man, does not confess infants. Seven-year-olds come to confession. However, all children develop in different ways, and it is impossible to strictly designate the age of seven as the time for the first confession.

There is such a science - Christian anthropology, according to which a child is not confessed until the age of seven, not because he is sinless, children often, even at a very early age, commit vile deeds, but because confession is not only a confession of his own sin, but also and a decisive fight against it. Children in infancy are not able either to truly realize their sins, or to start a struggle with them, therefore it is entirely up to the parents to correct the negative qualities of the baby's soul. A confidential conversation with mom or dad is the confession of a small child. Parents are, in a sense, the spiritual fathers of their children. They love their child, know him, help him to reform, can pity him or punish him, and a child without the help of his parents can neither realize his sin, nor correct it. The baby cannot even name his sin correctly.

Adults often believe that the Sacrament of Confession can be used as a tool for raising children, but this is wrong. They probably think that if you bring a child to confession from the age of four or five, he will forever get rid of sins that will be forgiven him. Such parents do not understand the very nature of confession. In a sense, confession is really an educational tool, only it belongs to God. The Lord educates us all through confession: both adults and children; and we cannot steal from God the right to educate a person. This means that we, parents, must learn to feel well where the area begins, in which only the Lord acts and in which we have no right to intrude. Here we must limit our rights to a child, otherwise we violate the freedom that God has given to every person, including the child.

There are, no doubt, children who develop early and are capable of confession until the age of seven. But ordinary children, even at the age of seven, cannot consciously confess. Confession for a child is always a kind of stress, during which he may not only not open up to his confessor, but, on the contrary, become even more closed in himself. So he finds himself in a situation to which he has not spiritually matured, and begins to confess formally, not understanding what is actually happening to him. Here it is, a certain form, using which he easily escapes responsibility. Here it is, the opportunity to act with impunity: I commit a sin, I speak about it in confession, the sin is forgiven me, and I continue to live the same way I lived before. This is the worst mistake of early confession. I know several parishes where eight-year-old, even nine-year-old children are admitted to Communion without confession, or they confess them once every three months, and are allowed to take Communion every week.

The transition from infancy to adolescence is the stage of development at which everything changes in a child's life. At the age of seven, the child goes to school. Teachers give him assignments, evaluate his work. Here at school, perhaps for the first time in his life, he has personal responsibility. His meeting with a teacher is a meeting with a person who instructs, teaches, sets an example for him. The age of seven for a child is, if you will, his new birth, a new period of comprehension of life. The whole world opens up to him differently. There is so much unknown in this new world that the question "why are we confessing?" for him, as a rule, he does not get up, because he himself is now already different. And he likes to be different, an adult, he likes to be aware of himself as a person who is responsible for his actions. Now he already knows that his behavior, his knowledge will be appreciated. Grades are not yet given in the first grade, but successes and failures are already noted.

The seven-year-old child is now entering the Church in his new capacity. After all, the Church is also a school, a real school of life, where the Teacher is Christ, and, entering here as grown-ups, the child receives new assignments. Explaining to him what confession is, from the point of view of his new adult life, is not difficult at all. Here it is - the beginning of responsibility and the beginning of spiritual life. This is the beginning of the spiritual struggle. Of course, this struggle is not as serious as in adults, and indeed children have different sins ... However, everything that sin does with an adult, it does with a child. But what is the worst thing about sin? A skill that brings sin into a state of passion. If a child acquires the skill of childhood sin, the sin takes root in him and becomes a character trait. Conversely, if a child from childhood acquires the skill of dealing with sin, then this useful quality can also become a trait of his character.

The first confession is, of course, a very important event for a child. Let this day become a holiday for him and be solemnly celebrated. Let him feel that he has done a very important, rewarding act today. It is not necessary to bribe a child so that he goes to confession, promising him gifts. This is not good. But you can reward the little confessor. Although this is a very, very subtle moment in a relationship, and it is important to feel it correctly.

Which priest to choose?

This question arises in families where the father and mother have different confessors. The situation is not entirely normal, but common for our time. Conflict can be buried deep within her. It is good when a family has one confessor. He nourishes the parents, through him the upbringing of children takes place. When parents have different spirit of understanding, the question "which father to choose for the child?" must be decided at the family council. If a child is brought up from infancy as an Orthodox Christian, the father and mother's confessors know his family situation well, both are spiritually worthy people, then both may well accept his confession from him. And it is best to give the child some freedom in choosing a confessor, to listen to his opinion about which priest he would like to go to confess.

Some parents deliberately choose a priest for their child who is not the spiritual father of their family. It's psychologically easier for them. They do not want to be responsible for upbringing and reason as follows: "Here is, they say, father, let him both confess and educate." Unfortunately, this is a fairly widespread attitude towards clergy. Parents often do not understand that a child does not have and, in general, should not have a confessor until a certain age. They themselves are the confessor of a small child, and they bear the full responsibility for the upbringing of a child's soul. The child is not independent. The Lord gave all children the commandment: Honor your father and your mother(Mark 7, 10). If a child, instead of a father and mother, reveres some priest who is removed from the family and tells him what his parents do not accept, there will be no peace in the house. But even worse is the fact that the child will always have some kind of lacuna where he can hide from his parents. Referring to the words of his confessor, he will act as he likes best. And the parents will be powerless only because they have relinquished the responsibility for upbringing.

Irresponsibility is a disease of our society and our Church. Grown educated people want to shift their whole life onto the shoulders of a priest, and therefore confession, blessing and obedience, both themselves and their children, often misunderstand.

In adolescence, children sometimes begin to confess in different churches or with different priests. Don't disturb them. Perhaps, due to the fact that they have such an opportunity, they will not leave the Church. The condition of a child in adolescence is very difficult. He is afraid to look “wrong” in the eyes of his parents and spiritual father. If the child is, in principle, ready at this age for confession and has not withdrawn into himself, then everything else can be tolerated. When he grows up, he will choose for himself: to stay with him with the confessor of his parents or find himself another priest to whom he could entrust his life.

Before the first confession ...

Before the first confession of their child, parents need to pray well and talk confidentially with the child. You can tell him about what the Sacrament of Confession is, what repentance in the Church is, about how God loves a person and is merciful to him ... There is no need to tell a child about his sins and how God punishes people for their sins. You cannot present Him to a child as a Punisher and a Terrible Judge. “The Lord is our loving Father” - this is how a child should think about God. And, of course, he needs to be told about the role of the priest. The child should know that there is spiritual leadership, that there is obedience, that there is the Sacrament of the priesthood. Only all this must be told in such a way that the child would understand.

The father and mother need to think well in advance about where the child will go to confess for the first time, and who will confess him. The very first confession should not be accidental. In large churches, where there is no established parish, where there is a huge flow of people, it will be difficult for a priest who is exhausted from many spiritual problems of people, often mentally unhealthy, to pay attention to a random child. "Well, what problems could he have ?!" - think the priest and let him pass him, leaving him unnoticed. And this is a tragedy for the little confessor.

It is necessary to prepare for the child's first confession and try to do everything possible so that it becomes an impetus for the birth of something new in his soul. This is the main task of parenting. Even in a crowded parish, you can ask the priest to find a special time for the first child's confession, ask him to at least know a little about the child who will come to him, so that he feels a tender look, a warm hand, warming the father's smile, so that the priest has enough strength to say this. child the word of consolation, encouragement. It is very important.

If the church family and the father and mother have a confessor to whom they turn, and the confessor knows the problems of this family, then there will be no difficulties in choosing a priest. Father himself will find an opportunity to talk with the child, because he understands well how important the first confession is in the life of a little Christian. As the chick recognizes its mother in the nest, so the child recognizes spiritual kinship in the priest during the first confession and is never separated from him again. The first confession imprints in the soul of the child the image of spiritual guidance, mentoring, and therefore the impression from it is so gracious and strong.

How often should I take my child to confession?

Answering this question, it is very difficult to give any specific advice. Much depends on the spiritual tradition in which the family lives. Of course, everything that constitutes at least some kind of regularity in spiritual work is very good. Everything that is a need for the family as a whole will eventually become a personal need for the child. When he grows up, he may not even think about whether or not he needs to confess often. They just did it in his family, so he will do it himself. Family traditions are like the air we breathe every day, and we don't discuss how appropriate it is.

“A child needs to be confessed once a week,” perhaps adults would like to hear from a priest, but it is pointless to demand from your child what you don’t do yourself. “We are working, we have no time, a lot of worries, but let him do everything that is necessary for salvation,” the adults argue. But it's not right. Of course there is God's mercy. Even the children of unbelieving parents go to church, but this is rather an exception, which only confirms the rule: "You cannot demand more from a child than you do yourself."

The Orthodox Church venerates Saint Timothy, Archbishop of Alexandria, who lived in the second half of the 4th century, as a holy father and an outstanding theologian, who worked hard in the development of canonical rules.

Photo: gorlovka-eparhia.com.ua

As a result of his scholarship, many contemporary bishops turned to him for the solution of difficult perplexed questions. Two hundred years later, the fathers of the VI Ecumenical Council (Constantinople, 680), with God's help, gave canonical force to his eighteen answers to questions concerning communion and moral purity (2nd Rule of the VI Ecumenical Council). One of them is Canon 18 of St. Timothy of Alexandria. This is how it is written about it in the document "On the participation of the faithful in the Eucharist", approved at the Bishops' Meeting of the Russian Orthodox Church on February 2-3, 2015: , but in the tradition of the Russian Orthodox Church, the first confession occurs, as a rule, at the age of seven. At the same time, the age of the first confession, as well as the frequency of confession for a child between the ages of 7 and 10, with communion every Sunday, should be determined jointly by the confessor and the parents, taking into account the individual characteristics of the child's development and his understanding of church life. " Approximately the same is written in the manual for priests, called "The Handbook of a Clergyman" (vol. 4, chapter "General Confession"): "According to the rules of the Orthodox Church, its members must resort to confession from the age of seven. In other words, already from the age of seven, the Church considers a person to be able to answer before God for his actions, to fight against evil in himself and to receive grace-filled forgiveness in the sacrament of Repentance. Children and adolescents brought up by their parents in the Christian faith, according to the Orthodox tradition, after seven years come to confession, the rite of which is no different from the usual one, but the age of the confessor should be taken into account when carrying it out.

But, of course, within their limits, the canonical rules of the Church give quite a lot of freedom in order to, with God's help, tripartite (priest, parents, the child himself) lead the baby's soul along the path to the Lord, raising it as correctly, tenderly and carefully as possible on the basis of the commandments. God's.

The priest and parents are required to provide the utmost attention, sensitivity and personal approach to the child, taking into account the age and individual characteristics of the development of his character. We, adults, must help the flower of the baby's soul to open up towards the Christ-Sun, but in no case turn out to be in his eyes some kind of execution-violent institution or ask the baby some formalistic formula that requires only pronouncing certain words without the participation of the child's heart and soul. After all, it is in them that a sincere feeling of repentance should be created.

In the novel by the Italian writer Umberto Eco "The Name of the Rose" there is an instructive scene ...

The young novice sinned gravely. And at night he lies in a cell, on the opposite wall on the bed - his spiritual mentor. The novice is tormented by conscience. The mentor guesses this from the height of his past years. And finally, the boy decides. He asks permission to confess. Matured. The mentor replies to him that he would prefer that the novice first tell him everything as a friend.

This is what degree a real confession should have! The warmth of the relationship between priest and confessing, regardless of age.

A kind of stopover is necessary, a stop in the service, when the whole world seems to disappear for a while. There are only three left: God, His servant-witness, the priest, and the penitent, whose task is maximally, utterly, without sparing himself, to reveal himself to God and, accordingly, verbally to the priest.

Therefore, of course, it is very important not to rush. Very important! So many people often pass through our priestly hands during the Liturgy that "because of the forest you cannot see the trees." The priest is physically and chronologically unable to give everyone the proper attention. The parishioners should also take this into account. If you want a high-quality non-formal confession, come to the all-night vigil, where you can slowly and slowly confess carefully and thoughtfully. If you are confessing at the Divine Liturgy and you see that there are thirty more people behind you, then try to prepare for confession at home in advance. Write down your sins on a piece of paper in order to quickly and efficiently confess. If you have serious deep questions, then ask your spiritual father or come to confession at an inopportune time. That is, make an appointment with the priest in advance for a certain time, during which there are no services, in order to confess slowly, with the opportunity to ask questions that concern you.

In the same way, if not even more carefully, you need to treat the child's first confession. It seems to me that in advance, perhaps a week before confession, the priest and parents need to start “working” with the baby in order to explain to him in understandable words what confession is.

For example, in my parish, thank God, there has been a Sunday children's school for several years, attended by children from about seven to twelve years old. The biggest problem for me as a teacher of the Law of God was to learn to speak their language - to explain the dogmas, the main events of Sacred history, prayers. Moreover, each age has its own language. This also needs to be taken into account. A teenager and a first grader are completely different age and psychological groups, each of which needs a special approach.
Therefore, it is very important, some time before confession, to the priest and parents to explain to the child what confession is and why it is needed in his life in a language that he understands, so that he does not perceive the priest as a prisoner of an NKVD investigator.

This explanation, it seems to me, should include three subjects. The first is the explanation of the Sacrament itself. The main points of interpretation can be the following theses: what is sin; what is invisible in the Sacrament before the penitent is the Lord Himself, Who also permits sins, etc. The second subject can be the outline of the circle of sins in front of the child. That is, you need to name him the sins characteristic of his age, let him mentally choose the offenses that he committed, and name them in front of the priest.

It seems to me that it is not worth compiling a list of his sins with the child's parents. Knowing the sins of others (even if your child's) is a priest's job. He was ordained for this. Dear parents, do not embarrass yourself or your child. Moreover, in this joint compilation of a list of children's sins, there is some kind of violent intrusion into the innermost life, a kind of restriction of personal freedom.

The ancient philosopher Socrates called his philosophy, which was very close to morality and ethics of behavior, "maevics". Translated from Greek, this word meant "midwifery", that is, the ability to take childbirth from a woman. Socrates considered himself to be giving birth to the mind, accepting and stimulating the birth of truth, the birth of right thoughts and feelings.

Roughly the same should happen in confession with a child. In himself, let this true word be born, a sincere awareness of sin and the habit of its inner sober identification and comprehension. Our business (priests, parents, teachers) is to help him realize the truth, but not to dissect the soul in order to mechanically insert the truth into it. The child must accept, understand and feel it himself.

The third subject is the relationship to the priest. Parents should make sure that the child is not afraid of the unusual bearded uncle in black. First of all, this result is achieved by frequent visits to the temple. It is necessary that for the child the temple becomes, with God's help, his second home. I can also say from experience that a seven-year-old child often confuses the father and the doctor. The doctor, naturally, if necessary, hurts the child (tests, injections, treatment, etc.). Also, the child may think that the father will also hurt him. Therefore, he will start to be afraid, panic, etc. Parents need to explain that the priest will not hurt him, on the contrary, he will give him “God's candy” - the Holy Gifts. The priest also needs to work with the children of the parish so that they meet with him not only during confession and communion, but also in everyday life, where they will have time to communicate with him, get used to him, and feel positive feelings.

And, as it seems to me, the timing of the first confession is a very important factor. It should not be appointed, for example, on a patronal feast, Easter, or any other major holiday. Then the service most of all resembles the movement of a train. Everything should be clear on schedule, without failures. The child himself may be frightened by this speed, a large crowd of people. And the priest, due to a physical lack of time, is not able to pay due attention to your child. Perhaps it is better to choose for the first confession a quiet, ordinary Sunday Liturgy, when there is no rush, or an all-night vigil, where, under the unhurried murmur of kathisma poetry or reading the canons, the father will pay maximum attention to the child. It is even possible to meet in church in advance of the Liturgy, after the All-night Vigil or at any time convenient for the priest, parents and child and perform this great Mystery of Confession, especially if this happens for the first time.

After all, it is very important that the correct words of repentance are born in the soul of the child, so that he feels the lightness that occurs only during the liberation from sin in the Sacrament of Penance, when the Lord God heals his soul.

Priest Andrey Chizhenko

At what age should a child confess?

In my opinion, a rather important problematic moment in the life of the Church today is the practice of children's confession. The fact that children should confess before Communion from the age of seven has become the norm since the Synodal era.

As Father Vladimir Vorobyov wrote in his book about the Sacrament of Repentance, for many, many children today, physiological maturation is so much ahead of the spiritual and psychological that most of today's children are not ready to confess at the age of seven. Isn't it time to say that this age is set by the confessor and the parent absolutely individually in relation to the child?

Children at the age of seven, and some even a little earlier, see the difference between good and bad deeds, but it is too early to say that this is a conscious repentance. Only a select few, subtle, delicate natures are able to experience this at such an early age. There are amazing kids who, at the age of five or six, have a responsible moral consciousness. But more often than not, other things are hidden behind a child's confession. Or the motives of the parents connected with the desire to have an additional educational tool in confession (it often happens: when a small child behaves badly, a naive and kind mother asks the priest to confess him, thinking that if he repent, she will obey). Or some kind of monkey behavior towards adults on the part of the child himself - he likes it: they stand, come up, the priest says something to them. Nothing good comes of it.

In most children, moral consciousness wakes up much later than the age of seven, and I do not see anything catastrophic in this. Let them come at nine or ten years old, when they will have a greater degree of adulthood and responsibility for their lives. In fact, the sooner a child confesses, the worse it is for him: apparently, it is not for nothing that children are not imputed sins until the age of seven. Only from a fairly later age do they perceive confession as a confession, and not as a list of what was said by mom or dad and written down on paper. And this formalization of confession that occurs in a child is a rather dangerous thing in the modern practice of our church life.

How often should a child be confessed?

Partly on my own mistakes, partly in consultation with more experienced priests, I came to the conclusion that children should be confessed as rarely as possible. Not as often as possible, but as rarely as possible. The worst thing that can be done is to introduce weekly confessions for the children. For them, it most of all leads to formalization. So they walked and simply received Communion every Sunday, or at least often (whether this is right for a child is also a question), and then - from the age of seven - they are also taken almost every Sunday under the prayer of permission.

Children very quickly learn to say the right thing to the priest - what the father expects. “I didn’t obey my mother, I was rude at school, I stole an eraser…” This list is easily restored, and they do not even encounter what confession is like repentance. And it happens that whole years come to confession with the same words: “I do not obey, I am rude, I am lazy, I forget to read prayers” - this is a short set of common childhood sins. The priest, seeing that besides this child, many other people are standing by him, forgives him his sins this time too. But after several years, such a "church-going" child will not understand at all what repentance is. It is not difficult for him to say that he did this and that badly, "to mumble something" from a piece of paper or from memory, for which they will either pat him on the head, or say: "Kolya, no need to steal pens," but then: “You don’t have to get used to (yes, then get used to) cigarettes, look at these magazines,” and then on an increasing basis. And then Kolya will say: "I don't want to listen to you." Masha can also say, but girls usually grow up faster, they manage to acquire personal spiritual experience before they can come to such a decision.

When a child is brought to the clinic for the first time and forced to undress in front of a doctor, then, of course, he is embarrassed, it is unpleasant for him. And if they put him in the hospital and pull up his shirt every day before the injection, he will start doing it completely automatically, without any emotions. Likewise, confession from some time on may not cause him any worries. Therefore, you can bless children for Communion quite often, but they need to confess as little as possible.

For many practical reasons, we really cannot spread the Sacrament and the Sacrament of Penance to adults for a long time, but we could probably apply this norm to children and say that a responsible, serious confession of a boy or a girl can be carried out with a fairly large frequency, and otherwise time - to give them a blessing for Communion, to introduce it not into the priest's initiative, but into the canonical norm. I think it will be good, after consulting with a confessor, to confess such a little sinner for the first time at seven years old, the second time at eight, and the third time at nine years old, somewhat delaying the beginning of a frequent, regular confession, so that in no case it becomes a habit.

How often should young children receive Holy Communion?

It is good to receive communion with infants often, since we believe that the reception of the Holy Mysteries of Christ is given to us for the health of soul and body. And the baby is sanctified as having no sins, uniting with the Lord in his bodily nature in the Sacrament of Communion.

But when children begin to grow up and when they already know that this is the Blood and Body of Christ and that it is a Shrine, then it is very important not to turn Communion into a weekly procedure, when they frolic in front of the Chalice and come up to it, not really thinking about the fact that do. And if you see that your child was capricious before the service, brought you on when the priest's sermon dragged on for a bit, had a fight with one of his peers who were standing right there at the service, do not allow him to the Chalice. Let him understand that one cannot approach Communion in every state. He will only treat him more reverently. And it is better to let him take communion a little less often than you would like, but understand why he comes to church.

It is very important that parents do not begin to treat the child's communion as a kind of magic, shifting onto God what we ourselves must do. However, the Lord expects from us what we can and must do ourselves, including in relation to our children. And only where our strength is not, there the grace of God replenishes. As it is said in another Church Sacrament - “the weak heals, the impoverished one replenishes”. But what can you do, do it yourself.

Parental involvement in preparing for confession

The main thing that parents should avoid when preparing a child for confession, including the first one, is to tell him the lists of those sins that, from their point of view, he has, or, rather, the automatic transfer of some of his not the best qualities in the category of sins in which he must repent to the priest. And of course, in no case should a child be asked after confession about what he said to the priest, what he said to him in response and whether he has forgotten about such and such a sin.

In this case, the parents should step aside and understand that the Confession, even of a seven-year-old person, is a Sacrament. Intervention by anyone in the Sacrament of the Church, especially as delicate as the Sacrament of Confession, is completely unacceptable. And any intrusion where there is only God, a confessing person and a priest accepting confession, is pernicious.

In cases where this consciousness needs to be formed in the parishioners, it needs to be educated through preaching, through the very organization of the confession, through repeated preliminary notification that you do not need to get too close, you cannot somehow react if you happen to do something. heard during confession. Maybe hold special conversations with parents and grandparents about their delicate attitude to the confession of children and grandchildren. All this, of course, can take place in one form or another.

How to teach a child to confess correctly?

Rather, you need to motivate your children not to how to confess, but to the very need for confession. Through our own example, through the ability to openly confess our sins to loved ones, to our child, if we are to blame for him. When we go to receive communion and realize our non-peacefulness or those offenses that have caused others, we must first of all be reconciled with everyone. and our attitude to confession, all this taken together, cannot but instill in children a reverent attitude towards this Sacrament.

And the main teacher of how to repent to a child should be the performer of this Sacrament - the priest. After all, repentance is not only a kind of inner state, but also a sacrament of the Church. It is no coincidence that confession is called the Sacrament of Penance.

Depending on the measure of the child's spiritual maturation, he must be brought to the first confession. The task of parents is to explain what confession is and why it is needed. They should explain to the child that confession has nothing to do with reporting to them or to the headmaster. This is that and only that which we ourselves realize as bad and unkind in us, as bad and dirty and which we are very unhappy about, about which it is difficult to say and what needs to be told to God.

And then this area of ​​teaching should be transferred into the hands of an attentive, worthy, loving confessor, for in the Sacrament of the Priesthood he was given grace-filled help to speak with a person, including a little one, about his sins. And it is more natural for him to talk to him about repentance than to his parents, for this is precisely the case when it is impossible and unhelpful to appeal to his own examples or to the examples of people known to him. Telling your child how you yourself repented for the first time - this is some kind of falsehood and false edification. We did not repent in order to tell anyone about it. It would be no less false to tell him how our loved ones got away from certain sins through repentance, because this would mean at least indirectly judging and evaluating the sins in which they were. Therefore, it is most reasonable to hand the child into the hands of the one who has been appointed by God as the teacher of the Mystery of Confession.

Can a child choose which priest to confess to?

If the heart of a little man feels that he wants to confess to this particular priest, who, perhaps, is younger, more affectionate than the one to whom you yourself go, or, perhaps, attracted by his sermon, trust your child, let him go there, where no one and nothing will prevent him from repenting of his sins before God. And even if he does not immediately determine his choice, even if his first decision turns out to be not the most reliable and he soon realizes that he does not want to go to Father John, but wants to go to Father Peter, let him choose and settle in this. Acquiring spiritual fatherhood is a very delicate, internally intimate process, and there is no need to intrude into it. This will help your child more.

And if, as a result of his inner spiritual search, the child says that his heart has clenched to another parish, where his friend Tanya goes, and what he likes there more - and how they sing, and how the priest speaks, and how people relate to each other, then the wise Christian parents, of course, will rejoice at this step of their youth and will not think with fear or distrust: did he go to the service and, in fact, why is he not where we are? We need to entrust our children to God, then He Himself will keep them.

In general, it seems to me that sometimes it is important and useful for parents themselves to send their children, starting at some age, to another parish, so that they are not with us, not in front of our eyes, so that this typical parental temptation does not arise - to check with peripheral vision , but what about our child, is he praying, is he not chatting, why was he not allowed to Communion, for what such sins? Maybe we will understand, indirectly, from a conversation with the priest? It is almost impossible to get rid of such feelings if your child is next to you in the temple. When children are small, then parental examination is reasonably understandable and necessary, but when they become adolescents, then perhaps it is better to courageously suppress this kind of intimacy with them, moving away from their life, belittling oneself for the sake of more Christ. and less than you.

How can we educate children to be reverent about the Sacrament and worship?

First of all, parents themselves need to love the Church, church life and love every person in it, including the little one.

And a loving Church will be able to convey this to his baby. This is the main thing, and everything else is just specific methods.

I recall the story of Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov, who in childhood was taken to Communion only a few times a year, but he remembers each time, and when it was, and what a spiritual experience it was. Then, in Stalin's time, it was often impossible to go to church. Since if even your comrades saw you, it could threaten not only with the loss of education, but also with prison.

And Father Vladimir remembers each of his visits to the church, which was a great event for him. There could be no question of being naughty at the service, talking, chatting with peers. One had to come to the Liturgy, pray, partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ and live in anticipation of the next such meeting. It seems that we should also understand the Communion, including young children who have entered the time of relative consciousness, not only as a medicine for the health of soul and body, but as something immeasurably more important. Even as a child, it should be perceived primarily as a union with Christ.

The main thing to think about is that the attendance of the service and the Communion become for the child not what we force him to do, but what he must deserve. We must try to rebuild our family relationship to divine services so that we do not drag our youth to receive Holy Communion, and he himself, after passing a certain path, preparing him for receiving the Holy Mysteries of Christ, would receive the right to come to the Liturgy and receive communion.

And maybe it’s better that on Sunday morning we didn’t bother our child who was having fun on Saturday night: “Get up, we’re late for the Liturgy!”, And he, waking up without us, would see that the house is empty. And he found himself without parents, and without a church, and without a holiday of God.

Even before that, he had only come to the service for half an hour, to the Communion itself, but still he cannot help but feel a certain discrepancy between lying in bed on Sunday and what every Orthodox Christian should do at this time. When you yourself return from church, do not reproach your youth with words.

Perhaps your inner grief over his absence from the Liturgy will echo in him even more effectively than ten parental urges "well, go," "well, get ready," "well, read the prayers."

Therefore, parents should never encourage their child to Confession or Communion at his already conscious age. And if they can restrain themselves in this, then the grace of God will surely touch his soul and help him not to get lost in the sacraments of the church.

These are just some of the points related to the modern practice of child confession, which I have outlined as an invitation for us to continue to discuss this. But I would like people who are to a large extent more spiritually experienced and have had spiritual practice for decades to speak out on this matter.

From book:ArchpriestMaximKozlov.
Children's confession: do no harm! Moscow: Nika, 2014

No matter how tiresome confessions of adults may be, the most difficult confessions for me are children and adolescents.

“I didn’t listen to my dad and mom, I didn’t study well, I didn’t clean the room, I had a fight with my brother, I didn’t take out the trash, I watched“ bad ”cartoons…" And even in older years, the content of confession practically does not change. And if he takes communion every Sunday, then every week he has to repeat the same serrated phrases in confession. The fact that he behaved unworthily in the church, did not thank God, was inattentive in prayer, that is, with rare exceptions, no one speaks about his relationship with God.

The situation is even worse with the confession of children from non-religious families, where there is no home prayer and the Gospel does not sound. They are brought to confession before the school year or "at the same time" during an excursion to the monastery, for educational purposes ("You, father, teach him"). In any case, the motivation for confession has nothing to do with the meaning of confession itself. As a rule, neither these children nor their parents really understand the essence of the sacrament. The child was prompted to tell the "priest" bad deeds so that "God would forgive." And that's all. The sacraments have nothing to do with real family life. As a rule, at the age of 15 these children are practically not seen in the church. And in adulthood, only a few of them truly turn to the Gospel. But how can one explain to aunts, mothers and godparents who bring these children to confession that such an approach is unacceptable, the children are not prepared for confession and Communion?

Litmus paper of the spiritual atmosphere in the family, I consider the behavior of infants under the age of three to four years before the Chalice of the Sacrament. In a church-going family, where monthly communion for the whole family is the norm where the Word of God sounds, babies partake very calmly. But when someone else is brought up, the "drama" begins. Crying for the whole temple. The child fights back with both hands, turns his face away, snuggles with a whimper to the mother / aunt / grandmother who brought it: "I don't want to!" Mom tries to force him (her) to turn to the Chalice, the sexton intercepts the hands, the priest tries to hit the crooked lips with a liar, with the risk that drops of Communion will be splashed on the sides. Persuasions are used: “this is sweet, eat a medic (juice, jam)” (while adults do not realize the blasphemy of these words). Persuasion does not work, time is dragging on, my mother also starts to get nervous. The atmosphere is heating up. And when there are several such children? .. Finally, the priest and the sexton contrived ... "Communion" was accomplished! A satisfied mother or grandmother steps aside. And I think that now the word "participle" is probably fixed in the mind of the child with the association of something very unpleasant. Subsequently, due to age, he will forget about what happened. And in the subconscious, the story will remain. And indifference to the sacrament, the perception of it as an incomprehensible, dead, rite, perhaps, are provided. An excellent prerequisite for the upbringing of religiously indifferent people, persons who openly do not love Orthodoxy. Child traumatized“Communion”, and it’s good if this trauma will later be overcome by his personal religious experience and meeting with a good priest ... If a child experiences the sacrament as a tragedy - I am against his communion!

But why does he behave this way? Sometimes I ask my parents when they themselves received communion for the last time. With very few exceptions, the answer is either "never" or "at least a year ago." What is the Sacrament? "Bread and Wine". "Prosphere". "This is for cleansing", "Well, to be cleansed from sins." "Do not know". And I understand that there is not just a gap between going to church and real life, but almost complete non-intersection. But babies receive communion, as they are baptized - by the faith of the parents, and by faith is meant an active faith that affects all spheres of life. In the cases described above, there is a belief in the "technology of the sacraments." Faith as life in Christ is not. And, since the spiritual atmosphere in the family behind the external, even decency, is absent, the child intuitively perceives the sacrament of Communion as something alien to what he absorbs in the family. And this causes him - again intuitively - a reaction of rejection!

I know that even many priests will not accept my words, but this is my conviction: if the family is not religious, I do not see the point in the very baptism of children.

What can you offer specific to prepare children for confession? To answer this question, I specially studied the experience of famous confessors. Among them are Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, priests Maxim Kozlov, Alexei Uminsky, Fedor Borodin, Vladimir Vorobiev, Vitaly Shinkar, Pavel Gumerov, Alexander Ilyashenko. Based on the material studied, the following recommendations have grown, which, of course, are of a general nature.

1. If the family does not have a confessor with whom there is close contact, then the main work of preparing for the child's first confessions lies with the parents. First of all, it lies in a personal example - when parents themselves more or less regularly begin the sacraments of Confession and Communion, when a child hears them praying, sees them fasting, while reading Holy Scripture and spiritual literature. However, if parents understand that they lack experience, it is quite natural that church-going godfathers can help them.

2. In preparation for confession, it is important to make the child feel that he is already old enough and can evaluate his own actions. The conversation should not resemble a lesson that he is obliged to remember. He can only sincerely repent of what he himself realizes as a wrong and bad deed.

3. It is unacceptable to tell children that God will punish. The idea of ​​God as the Prosecutor will distort the religious experience. Since God is the Father, it is natural that the concept of God is formed in the manner of his relationship with his parents. And if relationships in the family are completely harmonious, built on love, respect and trust, then it will be easier to convey to the child that sin is not just a transgression of the law, but that which destroys this trust and love creates a barrier between a person and God. And as it is natural for a child to love his parents, it is also natural for him to learn to love God.

4. Preparing for children's confession is an additional encouragement for parents and godparents to take care of themselves more closely... One of the reasons children leave the Church at a more mature age is that they are "trained" to pray and the sacraments, but they do not see in their parents a personal relationship with God, when everything comes down, at best, to the fulfillment of disciplinary rules (fasting, reading of the saints Fathers), but there is no joy of living in Christ. Or when parents do not work on their own sins, when the family does not have enough harmonious, healthy relationships.

5. Children have more developed imagination than logic. Therefore, it is more convenient to convey information about what a sin is, what sins are, using visual images, pictures, parables. For example, stories for children of Boris Ganago, songs-parables by Svetlana Kopylova, some plots from cartoons and films that correspond to their age can serve as a guide. For example, Ganago has a fairy tale "Metamorphosis", where it is revealed how greed and envy destroy the soul. You can pre-make a selection of thematic material on passions (resentment, pride, cruelty) and disclose one topic in a conversation with the child for several days - he himself will then determine to what extent this sin concerns him, or, fortunately, does not concern him at all ... In no case should you point out the known sins of the child. To make it easier to work on yourself, you can invite the child to write down on a piece of paper what he wants to profess.

6. When preparing for confession, it is important not only to help the child see sins, but also to encourage him to acquire those virtues, without which it is impossible to have a full-blooded spiritual life. Such virtues are: attention to your inner state, the skill of prayer. Children can understand God as their Heavenly Parent, so it is easy for them to explain that prayer is a living communication with Him. A child needs both communication with his father and mother, and a prayer appeal to God.

8. Sacrament and Confession are different sacraments, and their combination depends on the spiritual disposition of a given person. As the priest Aleksey Uminsky noted, “a child should not confess before every Communion ... In our country, to the greatest regret, a lot depends on the personal attitude of the priest. For example, one priest is set up so that under no circumstances should anyone be allowed to take part in Communion without confession, and he doesn't care how old the child is - 6, 7 or 15 years old ... Reasonable Christian families should look for those parishes where there is no "factory" there is no such thing that no one knows anyone. After all, there are churches where everything turns into a kind of nameless, faceless procedure, where parishioners go through certain stages: they come, bought candles, submitted notes, went to confession, then to Communion, that's all, returned home. This should be avoided. As a priest, it seems to me much clearer and more useful the practice that exists in local Orthodox Churches, where confession and Communion are not rigidly linked ... Where a parish has developed, where the priest knows each of his parishioners, and parishioners regularly receive Communion every Sunday , for every holidays, what's the point of carrying them through the procedure of naming the same things that are already clear? Then you have to confess every day, many times. Everything can be turned into some kind of madness. Of course, man sins every day. For this, there is an opportunity to check your conscience - during the evening rule there is a prayer in which sins are listed. It is not necessary to name what does not correspond to your life ... You can replace this prayer with your own prayer, tell God about what you repent of. Remember your life for this day and sincerely repent before God ... And the child must be told to be able to see how he spent today, how he communicated with his parents, with loved ones. And if there is something on your conscience, you need to ask God for forgiveness. And try not to forget it in confession ... "

9. It is desirable that the child has a personal, trusting relationship with the priest. For this there is communication - from Sunday school to hiking and pilgrimage.

10. Confession does not have to begin at age seven. As Archpriest Maxim Kozlov (Moscow State University Church) noted, “for many, many children today, physiological maturation is so much ahead of the spiritual and psychological that most of today's children are not ready to confess at the age of seven. Isn't it time to say that this age is set by the confessor and the parent absolutely individually in relation to the child? At the age of seven, and some even a little earlier, they see the difference between good and bad deeds, but it is too early to say that this is a conscious repentance ... For the majority, moral consciousness wakes up much later. But let yourself later. Let them come at nine or ten years old, when they will have a greater degree of adulthood and responsibility for their lives ... The formalization of confession that occurs in a child is a rather dangerous thing in the modern practice of our church life. "

11. Before the first confession, it is advisable to agree in advance with the priest about the time of confession. The first confession requires a particularly careful attitude. Therefore, you should not postpone it for some big holiday or when the priest is loaded with something else.

12. Preparation for a child's confession begins with the formation of his self-awareness. Children are ready for their first religious experience, including prayer on their own, from about the age of three. In other words, the child must learn to listen to himself. And - not to wait for confession, but right here and now to be able to say "I'm sorry." Parents, friends, sister. And, most importantly, to God. Again, it is important that he had this experience before his eyes from his parents, older brothers and sisters.

13. Confession cannot be used as an educational tool. Such a utilitarian approach immediately betrays the "spiritual" state of those who "equipped" the child for confession. Here are the words of CS Lewis: "People and nations who think that it is necessary to achieve improvement in society by faith can just as well use the services of the Forces of Heaven to regulate traffic." The temptation to use Christianity for ... ( fostering patriotic feelings, "obedience" to parents) is great. But a child, as he grows up, will never see the main thing in Christianity - the Incarnate God, who is Love. Will he love such "Orthodoxy"? Relatives who lead a child to confession with a “moral and educational purpose” do not themselves realize that by doing so they want no less than Christ to “re-educate” this child in accordance with their, relatives, expectations.

14. With frequent communion of children, you should not introduce weekly confession. It most of all leads to formalization. Children very quickly learn to say "standard": I did not obey my mother, I was rude at school, I had a fight with my brother. Almost none of the children will say that he prayed and was insincere in prayer, that he has some inner questions or doubts. And after several years have passed, such a "churched" child will not understand at all what repentance is. Confession from some time may no longer cause any worries. According to Archpriest Maxim Kozlov, “it will be good, after consulting with the confessor, to confess such a little sinner for the first time at seven years old, the second time at eight, and the third time at nine years old, somewhat delaying the beginning of a frequent, regular confession, so that in no case it did not become a habit. "

15. As they grow older, it is important to teach children that the Sacrament—it is the Blood and Body of Christ, that it is a Shrine that cannot be approached just like that. It is very important not to make the Sacrament a weekly routine when they frolic in front of the Chalice and walk up to it, not really thinking about what they are doing. And if you see that your child is capricious before the service, behaves too freely in the church, it is better not to lead him to the Chalice. Let him understand that one cannot approach Communion in every state. And it is better to let him take communion a little less often than you would like, but understand why he comes to church. It is important that parents do not begin to treat the child's communion as some kind of magic, shifting onto God what we ourselves have to do.

16. It will be pedagogically correct to educate children in the consciousness that service attendance and communion—not something forced, but a privilege - to be adopted by the Heavenly Father through the Flesh and Blood of the Son of God. No galaxy can contain God, but the heart of man can contain Him. Only it must be ready to receive God into itself - and this requires work on itself. We must try to build an intra-family attitude towards divine services so that we do not drag our youth to receive communion, but he himself would want it and prepare himself for this lofty sacrament. And, perhaps, it is better to go to the Sunday liturgy without him, in case of his refusal, if he does not want to get out of bed - so that, upon waking up, he would see that he was without parents, and without a church, and without a holiday of God. Even before that, he had only come to the service for half an hour, to the Communion itself, but still he cannot help but feel a certain discrepancy between lying in bed on Sunday and what every Orthodox Christian should do at this time. When you yourself return from church, do not reproach your youth with words. Perhaps your inner grief over his absence from the liturgy will echo in him even more effectively than ten parental compulsions. Or, on the contrary, he will see happy parents after receiving communion, and this will be a bright contrast to his own state, which will induce him to follow them another time. In any case, the parents of their child at his conscious age can propose, but not compel him to go to confession or Communion.

17. It is strongly discouraged to do the whole service with children.... Even adults often find it difficult to maintain prayer attention during a two-hour service, let alone a longer monastic service. Naturally, this is beyond the power of children. As a result, they begin to behave in a disrespectful manner in the temple - to run around the temple, to play, to be capricious. And thus they lose the sense of the sacred. Such children often become irreligious afterwards. They don't know what reverence is. Therefore, it is better to limit the number and time of attendance at divine services. It is enough, for example, to be at the service in the evening for about twenty minutes - during the polyeleos, and then bring it to the Liturgy in the morning, about twenty minutes before communion at the age of five, and little by little, every year, this time can be increased. No matter how much mom wants to be at the service entirely, it is better to sacrifice her desire for the sake of the child. In practice, there is another option, when one of the parents, in turn, comes to the service “for himself,” the other with the children pulls up to the time of communion. And not to let him behave this short time in the temple at ease. Some developed parishes have a separate liturgy for children.

In many ways, the ability to stand reverently in the temple in prayer depends on the extent to which family prayers have become part of the household.

18. We must not forget that the atmosphere of a church-going family is opposed by a completely non-Christian atmosphere of school, TV, and the Internet. That his peers live with completely different outlooks on life. And our growing little man, if he really has a good religious and moral attitude, does not always have friends and girlfriends of the same spirit with him.

You can protect him from the unhealthy influence of the secular world through the development of skills in it for healthy criticality, a taste for inner freedom. According to the remarks of Fr. Vitaly Shinkarya, “the task of parents is not to prepare children for confession, but to begin to reveal to them the depth of life, to teach them to understand it correctly. Instill a love of good reading, teach to understand poetry. You need to talk with children - about life, about its content, about the world around you. Not to protect them from this world, not to frighten them by the fact that there is one "satanic" thing around and everywhere, but to give children doses of "spiritual antidote". To begin with, to discuss with the child the meaning of the song heard, ask: "What do you hear in it? What do you see in this book? And in this film? Listen, I thought this and that, but you?" How do you like this character? In my opinion, he says one thing, but thinks another. Why does the artist, in order to depict evil, draws darkness? And why does light always bring clarity, and darkness hides something? " And then the child begins to see deeper and evaluate his actions from this very depth, peers into them. Sin for him becomes the absence of God - that very light. "

And, of course, it is necessary to bear the feat of prayer for them. Talking not only with children about God. But also with God - about children.

19. Regarding fasting - a skill should be instilled in it, in accordance with child psychology and the characteristics of the body. At first, some kind of food restrictions will be introduced by the parents themselves. But in general, they should set a goal for themselves so that, as they grow, the child himself wants to limit himself in something for the sake of God. Even if it is “just” giving up ice cream or chips, if he does it himself, it will be a significant step in the development of personal religious experience. Again, the degree of readiness for fasting in children largely depends on the parents. It is very important that fasting is not reduced to banal disciplinary requirements, not perceived as something dull and tasteless - in every sense of the word.

20. It is desirable to celebrate the first confession and the Sacrament somehow, so that it will be remembered, so that it really is a holiday for children. On this important day, you can dress your child and dress yourself more smartly. A festive table will not be superfluous, although with the preservation of some modesty (no alcohol for adults, no frills in sweets), a table, a visit to a cozy cafeteria or something like that.

Remember that by participating in the development of a child in all its spheres - spiritual, psychological, social - we do not have to ensure that he meets our expectations, no matter how much we want. Our task is to prepare him for an independent adult life. And so that he himself can build his personal relationship with God.

Very often in our children we tend to see sinless angels who have no need to repent, no need to go to confession. You can close your eyes for a long time to children's pranks. Until at some point the child grows up cruel, insensitive to the border of good and evil. Explaining this border to the child is the task of the parents. To cleanse and protect a child from the action of sin is the task of the Sacrament of Repentance, which the Holy Church offers us.

At what age do you need to confess?

Traditionally, the moment of the first child's confession is determined in the Church by the age of seven years. This seven-year milestone means a conditional transition from infancy to adolescence. At about this age, children begin to consciously assess their actions. They can already tell the good from the bad. From now on, they are responsible for everything they do.

You can often hear the opinion that children up to the age of seven are sinless. But this is not at all the case. We all acquire bad habits at birth, and our spiritual garments are overshadowed by sin over time. However, in infancy, parents are solely responsible for all the misdeeds of their children.

Reaching the age of seven is not at all an indicator that your son or daughter is ready for the first confession. For each person, such a moment comes individually, it can happen both earlier and later. All children develop in different ways. And here it is important for parents to determine when such a favorable age has come.

The main criterion that determines the child's readiness to begin the Sacrament for the first time is awareness. As soon as the boy learns to analyze his actions from the position of "bad-good", he begins to answer for them exactly as for his own, consider that it is time for him to go to confession. It must also be remembered that girls at this age grow spiritually faster than boys.

How to prepare a child for the first confession?

First of all, the beloved child should never be frightened. French atheist writer Jean-Paul Sartre recalled that as a child he was greatly frightened by the harsh God, who seemed to always closely follow him. This left an imprint on his entire future life.

The easiest way to explain the attitude of God to a person before confession is to your child using the example of a family. Just as a father cannot rejoice in the bad deeds of his son, so God does not look only for an excuse in them to punish. And just as a parent loves his child, no matter how careless it may be, so the Lord covers all our sins with His unlimited mercy.

God expects from us complete trust - that's all. Such a trusting relationship between a person and the Creator, first of all, is established through the Sacrament of Repentance. Parents can help their child prepare for it by suggesting that they write a small list of their sins on a piece of paper. Just do not need to dictate this list ourselves, moreover, write it instead of your own child. You can only suggest something to him, lead him to reflection.

It is important for parents to remember that neither the "stick" method, nor the "carrot" method in this case can give the expected result. A child cannot be forcibly forced to confess, this can cause a backlash. Nor should you try to bribe him. Although a little "praise" a son or daughter for the fact that they have repented and decided to correct themselves does not hurt at all.

It would be nice to go to the priest in advance, to agree with him about the time of the first children's confession. It will definitely be better if the priest knows that the boy is confessing for the first time, he will be able to pay more attention to him.

Since confessing for the first time is a very serious matter for a child and can determine the entire subsequent life of a person in the Church, it is necessary to approach repentance with full responsibility. Experienced priests name a number of traditional mistakes that parents most often make when preparing a child for this Sacrament. In this regard, you can give some basic advice.

1. In no case should a child be dragged to confession by force. It is worth remembering that the Lord accepts only free confession of sins and sincere repentance.
2. There is no need to use the child's confession as an additional lever of pressure in the method of upbringing. This task lies entirely with the parents. Neither the priest nor the Sacrament itself can automatically change the child if the correct values ​​and norms of behavior are not instilled in him from childhood.
3. In the list of sins, one should carefully avoid "adult" vices. This applies, for example, to the seventh commandment (on adultery), such sins that a child cannot yet know due to age. Otherwise, it can cause unnecessary curiosity and harm.
4. It is unacceptable to ask a boy about what he said during his repentance before God. By doing this, you will break the secret of confession, harm both yourself and your child.
5. Moreover, you do not need to advise the priest, ask him if your son or daughter has named any offense you know. Such interference will surely cause disappointment and distrust of the child in the Sacrament of Repentance. Parents should take care of their parenting business, and God's business should be left to God.

How often should children go to confession?

After the first confession, the question naturally arises: when should the child confess next time? And does he always need confession before the sacrament now? Different priests look at the frequency of repentance for children in different ways. But most of them are still of the opinion that it is better for the youth to confess less often.

Firstly, in this case, there should be no addiction to the Sacrament. Otherwise, the child develops the so-called "excellent student's syndrome." He knows approximately what needs to be said in order to be "allowed", he acts like a monkey and, most importantly, does not feel absolutely any remorse. Children's confession is thus formalized and devalued.

Secondly, the child needs to receive communion more often than to confess. Thanks to this, the two Sacraments will be perceived as separate. And only the adolescent's conscious need for repentance can lead to useful results - correction. It is clear that such a need cannot arise for a young parishioner on a weekly basis.

From this it follows that further the child can proceed to the sacrament without the prior permission of sins. You just need to take a blessing from the priest before that. An exception can be made only when the child commits some serious offense and himself feels the need to confess. In this case, of course, one must approach Holy Communion with a conscience purified by repentance.

The priest's advice on preparing for children's confession can be found here: