You can confess from time to time to different priests, but there must be one spiritual father. Relationships with him should be built on sincerity, understanding and trust.
A spiritual father cannot live life instead of his spiritual child. A spiritual father is only an assistant, adviser and prayer book. “The spiritual father, like a pillar, only shows the way, but you have to go yourself. If the spiritual father points, and his disciple does not move, he will not go anywhere, but will rot at this pillar,” wrote the Monk Nikon of Optina. Elsewhere he spoke about clergy: “What is a spiritual father needed for? In order to, with its help, walk unerringly and reach the kingdom of heaven, and for this it is necessary, mainly, to carry out in practice the instructions, advice and instructions of the confessor, to conduct one’s life piously. There were examples that some had the opportunity to often visit the elder, others even constantly sat near the elder, constantly listened to his instructions, even lived with him, and remained barren. And some had the rare opportunity to visit the elder and were honored to hear a brief instruction, but they succeeded... So, the strength is not in visiting the spiritual father often, but in following his instructions so as not to be fruitless.” And here is what Elder Schema-Hegumen John (Alekseev) writes: “What good do you want to get when you yourself don’t want to bother to follow his advice? No, honest one, it doesn’t happen that way. If you only ask, read and talk about salvation, but don’t work, it won’t be of any use.”
If a Christian is lucky enough to find a spiritual mentor, then he no longer takes any important step without receiving the blessing of the confessor or, at least, without consulting him; uses the instructions of the confessor regarding prayer rule, frequency of communion, fasting and acts of service to people; brings his life into harmony with the moral norms and requirements of the Church according to the instructions of his confessor.
Unquestioning obedience, on which the attitude of the novice to the elder in monasteries is based and which is described in the works of ancient ascetics, cannot be applied in parish practice in the relationship between priests and his flock. This applies only to the monastic way of life, since a monk, when tonsured, takes a vow of obedience and strives to completely reject his will.
The parish priest does not offer such a feat to the layman and does not assume the right to give indisputable instructions. The pastor-spiritual priest is called upon to help his flock with love and advice, without violating the God-given freedom of every Christian. He only recalls the Gospel commandments, guides a person’s spiritual life, and helps him in his inner work.
The definition of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church dated December 28, 1998 states: “To remind the Orthodox flock that the advice of a confessor should not contradict the Holy Scriptures, Holy Tradition, the teachings of the holy fathers and canonical institutions Orthodox Church; in the event of a discrepancy between such advice and the specified regulations, preference should be given to the latter.”
Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) writes about another aspect of the relationship with a confessor: “Beware of being partial to your mentor. Counsel and obedience are pure and pleasing to God until they are polluted by partiality. Addiction makes a loved one an idol; God turns away with anger from the sacrifices made to this idol.”
Is it possible to change your confessor? Here is what Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov) writes about this: “If a confessor in some respect does not meet your requirements, you can easily leave him and move on to another who will bring you greater spiritual benefit. There is no such law that would be attached: choose everything according to the disposition of your soul. From whom you receive more spiritual benefit, stick with him, resort to him... If you feel that you no longer receive spiritual benefit, consolation in the guidance of one confessor or another, but receive more spiritual benefit from another, then, without embarrassment, you can move on to another. If only they received greater benefit for the soul, better guidance.”
There are three things that are formed by an incorrect attitude towards spiritual life and confession: a state of irresponsibility, self-justification, expressed in the desire to appear as an innocent sufferer when a person begins to complain instead of confession, and humility instead of humility.
It is irresponsibility, the desire to not be responsible for one’s life in any way that often leads to the search for senility. Many people, looking for the supernatural, wait for the elder to tell them something, to open them, to gain their sight, and to show them the will of God. And in the absence of an elder, out of many priests, parishioners are forcibly trying to create some kind of ugly semblance of supposedly eldership, to build a supposed spiritual relationship between an elder and a spiritual child. Instead of living a spiritual life, a person comes to a priest in order to completely place all responsibility for his spiritual life on him. And therefore, these endless father, bless on this, on that, on the fifth and tenth are not a desire to live according to the will of God, but a desire to never answer for anything at all.
Father Gleb Kaleda complained that there is so much need for Christian service now, but I don’t want to take Orthodox Christians into service. It is better to take an unbeliever, an unchurched person, into a hospital to care for the sick, because it is often impossible to achieve anything from a believer. For example, it is necessary for an Orthodox parishioner to come to sit with the sick person, but she doesn’t come: my father served today, I could not help but go.
And this is largely determined by who a person comes to - to God or to a priest. The relationship between the priest and, roughly speaking, the child, or flock, is purely human: my father said, today my father is serving, I will go to my father.
When they try to use a priest to relieve themselves of responsibility for their spiritual life, confession turns into whining, into a constant complaint about how hard life is. Instead of repentance and self-reproach - blaming others. The person “confessed” in this way, he was listened to, and he feels better and more confident. No one else will listen to this, it’s hard, but the priest is kind of obliged - he has grace that obliges a person to bear the illnesses of all people. This is how it is, but a person begins to use this to satisfy his inner egoism, replacing confession with complaints.
Another disease when a person does not want to do anything spiritually, but justifies his spiritual laziness with the words I am unworthy or I am unworthy. Either I am weak, or I am weak, although in reality this is a proud person who does not need anyone at all. And it turns out that the one who is entrusted to live like a Christian renounces his ministry, all good deeds, and bearing his cross. Instead of what the Holy Fathers call humility, humility is manifested: Forgive, bless. Forgive me, a sinner. Almost immediately at your feet - bang - oh, sorry! Instead of doing something, changing just words - we are sinners, we are unworthy, and the corresponding posture, the corresponding intonation, the corresponding form of clothing, everything is according to the model.
Every confession turns into a constant desire to evade life. For some reason, a person begins to be satisfied with some kind of amorphous lifeless existence, when he does not dare to take a single action, does not want to change anything, and is afraid to truly live spiritually. This is a very convenient position when one is responsible for everything and one gets a false idea of obedience, a false idea of humility, a false idea of repentance.
Such a distorted understanding of spiritual life often determines the attitude towards the confessor, and sometimes this can also shape the confessor himself. right attitude to the whole parish - he begins to take advantage of this kind of people. They turn out to be very well managed; if necessary, they will create a scandal, will go to great lengths for their father, etc. They long to become not flocks, but a controlled herd, which should have not a shepherd, but a driver who will crack them with a whip and rule over them . It is enough for them to come to some kind of authority, which could be, for example, a priest. But they don’t want to go to Christ.
It's another matter when people seek real spiritual life. Of course, in this case, the same problems may arise, because to some extent, everything that I just said is characteristic of every person. But at the same time, there is also the idea that there is a spiritual life, and, thank God, there is another way.
And here a moment arises when some kind of spiritual relationship is established between the priest and his flock, what we now commonly call clergy, when the priest is called a spiritual father, and the one who comes to him for confession is called a spiritual child. What it is, I cannot say. Who is a spiritual father? What is a spiritual child? It is very difficult to say how this happens. But you can try to describe some things.
Not everyone who comes to a priest, even regularly, is his spiritual child. Not every person who regularly confesses to a priest is his spiritual father. This is understandable. For this to happen, some special, mysterious relationship must develop; these relationships, when they develop correctly, really make it possible for the priest to become an elder in a sense, that is, to very accurately express the will of God and, to this very extent, take responsibility before man for his words.
At this moment, of course, the priest is given something more than was given to him as a person who accepts confession: he is no longer only a witness of repentance, but can say something about a person that simply cannot be revealed to him as a person.
Man is the greatest mystery. According to the teachings of the Church, it is infinite and unknowable. Moreover, St. Maximus the Confessor says that when a person truly unites with God and his deification occurs, he becomes not only infinite, but also beginningless. And therefore it is very difficult to say anything about anyone. Directing someone to a certain place, telling them what they need and what they don’t need, giving a blessing for some special step in life is very difficult, it’s almost impossible. And a priest can say this from God only when he himself is truly in God and when his relationship with his parishioner is also truly born in God. It is necessary for a miracle of such a birth to occur.
How this happens, when it happens, at what moment it is recorded, I don’t know. It's impossible to grasp. But there are some conditions that are necessary for this to ever happen.
A lot depends on the priest. First of all, he is required to have equal love for everyone, and very sober love. To what extent it is present depends on the spiritual state of the priest, but he must always be ready to take upon himself entirely and completely everyone who comes to him. In addition, another very important thing depends on him - the gift of prayer, when the priest is ready to pray for his flock in such a way that this prayer really is the person’s acceptance of himself to the end. While this is not the case, serious spiritual intimacy is hardly possible.
Naturally, the priest is also limited in humanity; he is not able to love everyone equally or take on very large number people. Maybe he can only take one or two, and sometimes he can’t even carry two. This is all very complicated and depends on how a person grows spiritually. Of course, when a priest is twenty-five years old and has just been ordained, he cannot yet be anyone’s spiritual father; in principle, he does not have the right to direct someone’s spiritual life or take responsibility for another person. Therefore, a priest requires very great humility and honesty in order to answer someone coming to confession: I don’t know, I don’t know how, I can’t, I’m not ready. When asked, what should I do, father, what should I do, he can quite calmly throw up his hands and say, “I don’t know.” It is the priest’s right not to know, and it is impossible to demand from him an all-covering, grace-filled knowledge of the will of God or man himself.
And this is already the duty of the person coming - not to expect anything from the priest as from a person, not to present to him for resolution those issues that he must resolve himself. The priest may not know this and should not, perhaps, he may be very mistaken here. Of course, you can consult, but we must always understand that we are mostly consulting with a priest in a human way. If the Lord somehow intervenes in our conversation in a way unknown to us, this is His intervention and it does not depend in any way on the priest. Therefore, when you and I communicate about everyday matters, believe me, all this is human advice, and they do not mean more than the advice of a very experienced person in this particular matter. And there is no need to create illusions for yourself about this and attach some special spiritual meaning to it. The only thing is that when we ask for advice in searching for the will of God, the Lord somehow controls us. But we ourselves can do this if we really want and truly seek the will of God.
The next one is very important point: if a person wants spiritual guidance, he must first of all live a spiritual life. If he does not live a spiritual life, then what kind of spiritual guidance can we even talk about? If a person does not seek constancy in spiritual life, does not constantly strive for salvation, he will never find any guidance. It is given only when a person is already on the road, when he has already overcome a fairly serious path and does not know the way back, does not turn onto it. That's when it begins spiritual direction, then this person comes with a real confession and the priest understands that he came to him not as a merchant, not as a beggar, not as someone who wants to lay his cross on him and rest at the same time, but as a person who wants spiritual life. And then the priest can begin some kind of spiritual co-revelation with him. A person begins to trust the priest with his spiritual life, that is, he becomes very frank with him. This does not mean that he needs to specifically confess his thoughts, this happens completely naturally, he simply reveals his entire life to the priest without hiding in the light of repentance. And from this moment such a spiritual action can begin, which, in fact, makes a person a child, and a priest a father, and which is called obedience.
What is obedience? The doctor inserts a phonendoscope into the ears and listens to his patient. This is what happens to a priest, this kind of obedience. He listens very deeply prayerfully, constantly striving to know a person with God’s help, to know a person in God. Such obedience occurs on the part of the priest.
When he is capable of this, the person must be able to open up. When a patient comes to a doctor, he bares himself, exposes his sore spots. And then the doctor listens to him. The same thing, in a sense, happens when a person truly comes for spiritual healing. He knows how to open himself, to be very open, frank for the priest, so that he can listen to him carefully and deeply, deeply.
And in response to this, obedience occurs on the part of the flock. He listens carefully to all the words that the priest then tells him in order to fulfill it.
In ancient times, unlike ours modern world, Very important had an understanding of hearing, and people in spiritual life perceived everything by ear. The students followed the philosopher and listened to him speak. People went to the synagogue and listened to the Torah being read and the sacred text explained. The Scriptures were read only in synagogues, they were kept there, and they were not kept in homes. Imagine how well the scribes and Pharisees, who literally knew the texts of the Holy Scriptures by heart, could hear. And then people listened to the Apostles, who preached Christ, listened to the Gospel in the temple. The Gospel was also not kept in homes, only on rare occasions. There was hearing of the Gospel, and people were attentive to what was being said.
Now the whole world has switched to entertainment and perceives everything only through it. And this is the lowest state of God, when a person needs spectacles. Already in the first centuries, Saint John Chrysostom and other Fathers spoke out against theaters and all kinds of spectacles, calling them a pagan creation. And not only because these are pagan or immoral spectacles, but because this is a completely different way of perceiving the world. We now perceive everything with our eyes, but we need to watch how you listen.
Bishop Athanasius (Jevtich) in his lecture on hesychasm says very important things about hearing: “In the Old Testament, the sense of hearing is given more importance. The sense of vision was always emphasized by the ancient Greeks: everything around is beautiful, beauty is everywhere, space. All Greek philosophy comes down to aesthetics.<...>Father Georgy Florovsky writes that this happened in the last century in Russian philosophy, even in Solovyov. Such is the temptation of aesthetics, for everything around to be beautiful.
Of course, this does not negate the significance of vision in Scripture. But, for example, here I am giving a lecture and looking at you. Who is more attentive - the one who looks at me? However, you can watch and still be absent. But if a person listens by ear, he cannot be absent. He is more concentrated when he listens by ear. And so Saint Basil said: “Pay attention to yourself.”
When a person knows how to listen by ear, this gives birth to obedience. A person is very attentive, firstly, to himself and listens to his confessor. At this moment of obedience, the relationship between a spiritual father and a spiritual child is born.
Outwardly, obedience is perceived as strict execution of certain instructions. But in fact, obedience goes much deeper. Attentive hearing, deep penetration into you of a word that can make you different or warn you against some action, or give you an impulse for your spiritual path, should be perceived in such a heartfelt soil where there is no alternative. A person perceives this very deeply for himself, because they listened to him and he became open. He made himself available to be understood, to be open, to show who he is, and this makes it possible to hear the truthful word about himself. Then the priest no longer speaks simply as a priest; at this moment an element of eldership appears, an eldership that was spiritual.
It depends on subtle things. Nobody can claim this. Nobody can cultivate this in themselves. No one can say this about themselves. It is given by God precisely at such a moment of obedience. And this gives birth to gifts that are then given to the priest in his spiritual care, which make the person being flocked and the person shepherding so close and dear that the shepherd truly perceives his spiritual children as something living and inseparable from himself.
How this happens, at what point, how these relationships develop, is almost impossible to say. It's a mysterious thing. They cannot be defined formally - I appoint you as my spiritual child, or I have chosen my spiritual father. That's not how it's done. Relationships are formed through many years of obedience, such constant opening of oneself to obedience.
The priest’s knowledge of who stands in front of him, the trust of the one who comes to the priest, gives rise to spirituality itself, affinity of souls and trust. Because when there is no trust, when a person cannot trust himself, then there is nothing to talk about at all. A spiritual conversation turns into a spiritual, intimate, psychological, everyday and everyday conversation. A person thinks that he has received a blessing, and now his life happens according to the will of God. Totally untrue; God's will has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Of course, not all people of equal spiritual level who confess to a priest become equally open to him, trusting or able to hear him. And the priest is not equally able to convey something to all people; there are certain obstacles. I don't know what they are connected to. It's a secret. But I know one thing - if a person wants spiritual life, is looking for spiritual life, then he can seek it and receive it only through obedience. There is no other way for it to be given.
Priest Alexy Uminsky
I'm somewhat worried about your attitude towards me. You get carried away and are ready to attribute to me such good qualities that I don’t have at all. This is harmful to you and may cause unnecessary grief for you in the future. Don't get carried away. Be calm and equal in your relationships and ask the Lord and the Mother of God to inspire me or someone else to tell you something useful for the salvation of your soul, for what does a person mean?
There is religiosity, closely confused with aesthetic, sentimental, passionate emotions, easily coexisting with egoism, vanity, and sensuality. People of this type seek praise and good opinion about them, their confession is very difficult, because they come to confession to complain about others, to cry, they are full of themselves, they easily blame others. The poor quality of their religious exaltation is best proven by a slight transition to irritability and anger. People of this type are further from the possibility of real repentance than the most inveterate sinners.
Women very often strive to establish such a spiritual relationship with a priest that will imitate some kind of common life. This is not necessarily love, but it is some kind of spiritual comfort. They begin to demand that the priest pay attention to them, talk to them, communicate with them:
- Why didn’t you ask me about something, why did you pass by me, why did you talk to that one for a long time, but only briefly to me? Why are you so harsh with me, you don’t care about me?
These kinds of experiences and feelings always mean that a woman’s relationship with a priest is emotional, not spiritual. She is not looking for a confessor in him, but for compensation for her unsettled spiritual life. There may not yet be love, but there is always some kind of partiality.
Affection, generally speaking, is not bad, it is quite natural to love your spiritual father, this is normal. It even has to be, and such love can be very strong, even the strongest in a person’s life - love for a spiritual father. But the nature of this love is important. It needs to be the love of a daughter for her father. It must be spiritual love, for Christ’s sake. Love that sees in the priest a teacher of spiritual life sent by God. When you want to humble yourself, learn, obey, when you are ready to endure even harsh teaching, a strict reprimand, when you have faith that your confessor loves you, prays for you, thinks about you, and at the same time does not owe you anything at all, is not obliged to lead with you "pleasant" conversations or something like that. Such love will be both good and fruitful. And spiritual relationships, especially where resentment against the priest begins, are spiritually fruitless and harmful, they mean delusion.
The beauty is Slavic word, “flattery” is translated into Russian by the word “lie”. Prelest means self-deception. A person thinks that he is on the right path, but in fact he is on the wrong path.
Women very often strive to establish such a spiritual relationship with a priest that will imitate some kind of common life. This is not necessarily love, but it is some kind of spiritual comfort. They begin to demand that the priest pay attention to them, talk to them, communicate with them:
- Why didn’t you ask me about something, why did you pass by me, why did you talk to that one for a long time, but only briefly to me? Why are you so harsh with me, you don’t care about me?
These kinds of experiences and feelings always mean that a woman’s relationship with a priest is emotional, not spiritual. She is not looking for a confessor in him, but for compensation for her unsettled spiritual life. There may not yet be love, but there is always some kind of partiality.
Affection, generally speaking, is not bad, it is quite natural to love your spiritual father, this is normal. It even has to be, and such love can be very strong, even the strongest in a person’s life - love for a spiritual father. But the nature of this love is important. It needs to be the love of a daughter for her father. It must be spiritual love, for Christ’s sake. Love that sees in the priest a teacher of spiritual life sent by God. When you want to humble yourself, learn, obey, when you are ready to endure even harsh teaching, a strict reprimand, when you have faith that your confessor loves you, prays for you, thinks about you, and at the same time does not owe you anything at all, is not obliged to lead with you "pleasant" conversations or something like that. Such love will be both good and fruitful. And spiritual relationships, especially where resentment against the priest begins, are spiritually fruitless and harmful, they mean delusion.
Prelest is a Slavic word, “flattery” is translated into Russian as the word “lie”. Prelest means self-deception. A person thinks that he is on the right path, but in fact he is on the wrong path.
prot. Vladimir Vorobyov
How spiritually beneficial can non-liturgical communication between the laity and a confessor be?
If we talk about another level, then non-liturgical communication in most cases is not at all necessary, although it can take place. Not here uniform standard what is good and what is bad. To properly organize one’s spiritual world, it is enough for a person to communicate with a priest as a counselor. It is absolutely not necessary to have a cleric as a family friend, a periodic visitor to your home, a companion on your pilgrimage journeys, etc. Due to the fact that parish life involves situations of communication outside of worship ( school communication, cultural events, etc.), then, of course, such communication takes place. There is nothing bad about it, unless it causes unnecessary attachment to the priest as a person. If the desire to communicate with a priest becomes more important than the desire to go to church for a service or do church work, here you need to tell yourself “stop” and, if not completely distance yourself, then at least refuse all these unhelpful situations of communication.
prot. Maxim Kozlov
***
Sometimes girls and women, who for some reason have not found a life partner or are not satisfied with their existing marriage, tend to experience tender feelings for pastors who, as is known, are either married or have taken a vow of celibacy. Most often, this kind of love is seemingly completely “spiritual”, that is, there is no physical attraction at a conscious level. However, all the thoughts and feelings of a girl or woman are occupied by the priest, to whom she feels strong affection...
This is a phenomenon that causes, on the one hand, a smile or irony, and on the other, deep sadness. Yes, there is no smoke without fire. And, of course, the priest must be well aware that not all the people around him live a genuine spiritual life, truly strive for “the only thing needed” - the salvation of their soul, the cleansing of it from passions. After all, many people today go to church also because it’s warm there and you can warm up your body and soul. Many expect to meet human sympathy, attention, and sometimes material support in the temple. For some, the personality of the shepherd becomes the main focus of attention: this happens to those who do not find the strength in themselves - or better yet, do not want to direct their strength to the field of repentance. To one degree or another, the danger of this substitution was probably felt by everyone to whom God gave a confessor. It is not immediately that we develop the correct attitude towards a priest, a weak person like us - assigned, however, to serve the verbal sheep of the flock of Christ. The main thing is that the shepherd himself does not find himself in the snares of delusion and, willy-nilly, does not replace the One by whose power and blessing he acts.
I know that if a Christian in confession sincerely shares with the priest his inner confusions, reveals his thoughts (let’s not forget about the existence of an evil force that tries to desecrate everything, mix inappropriate things with a good disposition and thus trample the feet of the ascetic), the heart wound will certainly be healed by God’s grace . It is important with what disposition we meet temptation. He must come, but it depends on us whether we will fall into his power or whether we will wisely remove this danger from ourselves.
Of course, it is given to a priest to feel when such substitutions - what is called in ascetic language addiction, human attachment - begin to prevail in someone’s soul over reverence for the priesthood. Obviously, the shepherd must put up some kind of “barrier” in time. In any case, keep your distance, do not indulge whims and lusts, but, if necessary, be strict, decisive and concise in communicating with “interested parties.” It does not take much time to benefit from the graces of the priesthood. The complete opposite of the norm occurs when the priest begins to “sort things out” with a parishioner at the latter’s request. She is not satisfied either with the service, or with the sermon, or with confession. She needs something more: emotional attention... She looks offended, and sometimes she really worries - her heart is not a stone. May God grant the shepherd to find the golden mean, the line between truth and love, so as not to aggravate the matter, but to sober the soul, pointing out the need to suppress the inappropriate disposition that encroaches on our unity in Christ.
How can a woman recognize in herself an undue predilection for her confessor and separate it from those feelings that are pleasing to God? Are there any reliable criteria here? By what signs do we know that the two warring parties, who have been waiting for something for a long time, have finally entered into battle, the first volleys of weapons are heard, smoke from gunpowder appears in the air in the ground, craters are formed from exploding shells... So it is in spiritual life. A sign of an incipient illness is often the face of the confessor constantly standing before the mental eye. If you do not recognize the enemy’s temptation behind a mental picture in time, then significant damage can be caused to the work of prayer. Others feel the urge to pray for their confessor with constancy, several times during the day, and are convinced that it is their prayers that help the priest in the fight against visible and invisible enemies... Such a focus on “helping” the confessor undoubtedly has a downside. This also happens. A parishioner confesses to the priest that she feels and knows to the minute when he offers prayers for her: “Father, how grateful I am to you! Yesterday at half past two I received wonderful help from you. All the fighting subsided as soon as you stood up to pray for my sinful soul.” From experience we know that the price for such an addiction will be disappointment, moreover, rejection from the personality of a sincere, kindly-minded shepherd, whose fault was, perhaps, in the fact that he did not immediately stop all the phenomena we have described.
What if a woman understands that what is happening to her has nothing to do with true love, and wants to get rid of the feeling that has enslaved her? After all, she often faces the need to confess her experiences to the very priest who caused them. Many believe - and probably quite rightly - that declarations of love during the sacrament of confession sound rather inappropriate. On the other hand, confession from some other priest can further disrupt the flow of spiritual life... I think that the solution to this issue depends on the specific circumstances and personality traits of the priest. If this is an experienced shepherd, familiar with spiritual warfare and temptations encountered in inner life parishioners, then he will easily remove this embarrassment with his wise words. One day a nun confessed to the Monk Ambrose of Optina that she had an inappropriate disposition towards him. The elder, smiling good-naturedly, said in response to her confession: “Don’t be afraid, you won’t develop an addiction to me.” The holy ascetic, by the power of the Spirit of God, drove away all thoughts from the soul of her ward. So, if the priest already has some experience (and his age serves as a guarantee), then, of course, talking about the embarrassment that arises about him is the right thing to do. If you confess to a relatively young pastor who is not so easy to find the right word in this case, perhaps it makes sense to turn to a more sophisticated priest and decide together with him how to behave further: whether to leave for a while, confess in another church, to another person, or endure this abuse, not agreeing with her suggestions, or still tell about this priest, to whom the temptation relates.
prot. Artemy Vladimirov
A spiritual father is obliged to pray for a spiritual child, he must monitor his growth, give him advice based on the Holy Scriptures and the words of the holy fathers, and he must be the main representative before God about his child. The confessor is responsible for the spiritual child to the extent that he obeys him. It is impossible to be responsible for a spiritual child when he does not listen to advice; he is not even a spiritual child then. A spiritual child must himself pray for his spiritual father, obey in everything that does not contradict the will of God, he must perceive his spiritual father as a teacher who helps him go to Heaven. If a spiritual child decides to go into conflict with his confessor, then one must understand that this is not a spiritual child, but a relationship of bickering. This is not a relationship between a teacher and a student, but a relationship between a debater who will never learn anything. Now many spiritual children consider it their personal duty to correct their confessor. Nothing good will ever come from this approach. ( priest Daniil Sysoev)
When you go to ask your spiritual father about something, read: “Lord my God! Show me mercy and inspire my spiritual father to give me an answer according to Your will.”
Can an experienced layperson be a mentor in spiritual life?
The leader in spiritual life for every Christian must necessarily be a priest - a confessor, to whom he must resort not only for confession, but also for teaching.
Is it a sin to be jealous of your spiritual father?
Be careful not to become addicted to your mentor. Many were not careful and fell, together with their mentors, into the demon’s snare. Counsel and obedience are pure and pleasing to God as long as they are not defiled by partiality, and with partiality good works die.
You must love your spiritual fathers, but do not forget that the spirit of the flesh is not far off.
Jealousy of one's spiritual father is a grave sin. He pays little attention to you, and more to others - like a child, accept it. For this you will be loved more by the Lord and your spiritual father.
What to do if there are few experienced priests and it is impossible to get to them. Is it possible to ask a young priest for advice or is it better to rely on the Holy Books?
If the confessor himself has not experienced virtue, then ask anyway, and for your humility the Lord will have mercy on you and protect you from all untruth, and if you think that the confessor is inexperienced, that he is in vanity and that it is better to be guided by books yourself, then you will dangerous path and not far from delight. There are many people who were so deceived in their thoughts and did not succeed because of their contempt for their confessor. They forget that the grace of the Holy Spirit operates in the sacrament.
What should you do if you see the shortcomings of your confessor and this confuses you?
You need to know that the enemy in monasteries and parishes tries nothing more than to break the connection between the spiritual father and the brethren and parishioners. To do this, he destroys the virtues of the fathers in the eyes of the brethren and parishioners, and increases their shortcomings, inherent in our human nature, and even invents them. Most monastics are captivated by this temptation, although not all to the same extent.
The antidote to hostility towards your spiritual father is a frequent mental exercise in calculating the merits of your spiritual father and then thanking the Omniscient God, who has made you worthy to be under the guidance of a servant chosen by Him for this purpose.
Remember: whoever condemns the priesthood takes the sins of the priest upon himself and will give an answer on the day of the Last Judgment of God.
Is it permissible to reveal to others the elder’s teachings in confession?
In general, do not tell anyone what you are talking about with your confessor. Don’t trust anyone but him about your temptations. You won’t get relief from stories, and you can only bring harm to others: they will listen to you out of curiosity, and then they will be tempted and condemn you. Keep all the commandments and instructions of your confessor secret, and it will be good for you.