On Repentance and Confession

Summary

Because everyone sins after Baptism, Dimitrios Panagopoulos explains, God established repentance and confession to cleanse the wounds of the soul. He catalogues the enemy's arguments against confession: that one is sinless, that the priest is unworthy, that others are worse, that good works cancel what was never confessed. True healing requires both parts together, the sincere rejection of the sin and its acknowledgement without intention to repeat it. Memorial services and the Divine Liturgy express the Church's care for those who died with sins forgotten or unconfessed. No sin exceeds God's forgiveness where repentance is sincere; despair denies Christ's philanthropy and leads toward spiritual death. Citing a tale ascribed to Amphilochius of Iconium, he shows that pride alone forecloses mercy, and describes confession not as a tribunal but as a refuge.