Six Lectures on the History of the Mystery of Repentance: Against General Confession

Author: Archpriest Valentin Svenitsky

Format: Paperback

Pages: 48

This is a translation of six lectures originally delivered in Moscow during Great Lent, 1926. They are specifically concerned with preventing the abuse of "general confession," which is the practice of a priest hearing the confession of a group of people simultaneously and then reading a single prayer of absolution. It sets out succinctly the history of this essential Christian sacrament and of the necessity of its correct use in the Church today.

Archpriest Valentin Svenitsky was a spiritual son of Saint Anatoly the Younger of Optina, a popular defender of patristic spirituality, and a teacher of the Jesus Prayer. Fr. Valentin was arrested by the Bolsheviks in 1928 for his defense of the Faith and sent to the Siberian region of Kansk, where he fell ill, and reposed in the Lord on October 17, 1931.