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In the Eastern Catholic Church, Can One Receive Communion with a Serious Sin on One's Soul?
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Vico
Guest
The original document for reference:
vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/ch_orthodox_docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_19930624_lebanon_en.html
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newlywed8
Guest
I have read and reread this discussion multiple times and this is where I think the problem is coming in.
No matter how many times it has been repeated, it appears to not be grasped. The East does not divide sins into predefined categories of mortal (or serious) vs. venial. What is serious sin is different for everyone and needs to be determined with the help of a confessor. For example, someone mentioned fornication. For many people, this may be a serious sin. I am sure, however, that somewhere there is a repentant prostitute or drug addict who commits fornication, but for the first time is having relations from a place of love. Of course it is still ‘falling short of the mark’, but it is definitely conceivable that a confessor may advise the person to approach to continue to receive spiritual nourishment to continue the journey. In the West, I believe this is referred to as mitigating circumstances.
Conversely, a monk on Mt. Athos may commit a ‘serious sin’ by doing something as simple as a minor act of impatience or excessive laughter.
The point is that what constitutes ‘serious sin’ is different for everyone based on their own spiritual place. The Eucharist is food for the forgiveness of sins. Eastern Christians, however, are also expected to have a close relationship with a spiritual father who can help them navigate the terrain, offer them guidance and advice on a regular basis, absolution, and can help them determine a spiritual regiment, which may at times require abstaining from the Eucharist. Whether or not a person can receive is entirely dependent on them and their confessor. There is no predefined list of ‘grave matters’ where if a person commits xyz they cannot receive.
Someone mentioned a prior discussion regarding Orthodox priests not communing people who had not been seen in confession. The above is why. Without knowing that the person is in a relationship with a priest who is guiding them to theosis the priest cannot know that the person is receiving guidance or is living in persistant sin (ie left the church).
For those in the East, it sounds odd to say : if you commit this sin, you can approach, if you commit this sin you cannot. No one is worthy, all people sin. The key is a genuine effort towards metanoia. Those who live in willfull, persistent sin with no intention of stopping or improving are the ones that should not approach. If you are intent upon metanoia, you should be regularly seeing a confessor for guidance.
I honestly think at this point that is seems most people in this conversation are starting to dig in their heals and are not making any progress.
Although, as an EC, I strongly agree with those who have said that the constant repetition of canon law and segments from particular websites is not helpful.
Our churches were heavily damagaged by Latinizations, but that is another discussion. Regardless, many of our priests and even bishops were unfortunately formed under these influences or even actual Latin seminaries. We have a long way to go to returning to authentic Eastern practice. We are called to be Eastern, please don’t try to tell us how to do it.
No matter how many times it has been repeated, it appears to not be grasped. The East does not divide sins into predefined categories of mortal (or serious) vs. venial. What is serious sin is different for everyone and needs to be determined with the help of a confessor. For example, someone mentioned fornication. For many people, this may be a serious sin. I am sure, however, that somewhere there is a repentant prostitute or drug addict who commits fornication, but for the first time is having relations from a place of love. Of course it is still ‘falling short of the mark’, but it is definitely conceivable that a confessor may advise the person to approach to continue to receive spiritual nourishment to continue the journey. In the West, I believe this is referred to as mitigating circumstances.
Conversely, a monk on Mt. Athos may commit a ‘serious sin’ by doing something as simple as a minor act of impatience or excessive laughter.
The point is that what constitutes ‘serious sin’ is different for everyone based on their own spiritual place. The Eucharist is food for the forgiveness of sins. Eastern Christians, however, are also expected to have a close relationship with a spiritual father who can help them navigate the terrain, offer them guidance and advice on a regular basis, absolution, and can help them determine a spiritual regiment, which may at times require abstaining from the Eucharist. Whether or not a person can receive is entirely dependent on them and their confessor. There is no predefined list of ‘grave matters’ where if a person commits xyz they cannot receive.
Someone mentioned a prior discussion regarding Orthodox priests not communing people who had not been seen in confession. The above is why. Without knowing that the person is in a relationship with a priest who is guiding them to theosis the priest cannot know that the person is receiving guidance or is living in persistant sin (ie left the church).
For those in the East, it sounds odd to say : if you commit this sin, you can approach, if you commit this sin you cannot. No one is worthy, all people sin. The key is a genuine effort towards metanoia. Those who live in willfull, persistent sin with no intention of stopping or improving are the ones that should not approach. If you are intent upon metanoia, you should be regularly seeing a confessor for guidance.
I honestly think at this point that is seems most people in this conversation are starting to dig in their heals and are not making any progress.
Although, as an EC, I strongly agree with those who have said that the constant repetition of canon law and segments from particular websites is not helpful.
Our churches were heavily damagaged by Latinizations, but that is another discussion. Regardless, many of our priests and even bishops were unfortunately formed under these influences or even actual Latin seminaries. We have a long way to go to returning to authentic Eastern practice. We are called to be Eastern, please don’t try to tell us how to do it.
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Bookcat
Guest
One must view it as the* Catholic Church* views such.
As to the question that was the subject of the tread --such has been answered by referring to how the Catholic Church answers this question (East and West).
One is not to receive Holy Communion if one has committed a serious sin --until one has gone to confession and been absolved (more was noted but that is in the fuller posts I posted above)
And by the way one which one will find Eastern Orthodox writers too agreeing with such.
Example: one from an Eastern ORTHODOX Priest and Pastor of an Orthodox Parish:
“Of course, should we fall into serious sin we must repent and go to Confession before we receive Holy Communion.”
tampaorthodox.org/sacrament_of_confession.html
As to the question that was the subject of the tread --such has been answered by referring to how the Catholic Church answers this question (East and West).
One is not to receive Holy Communion if one has committed a serious sin --until one has gone to confession and been absolved (more was noted but that is in the fuller posts I posted above)
And by the way one which one will find Eastern Orthodox writers too agreeing with such.
Example: one from an Eastern ORTHODOX Priest and Pastor of an Orthodox Parish:
“Of course, should we fall into serious sin we must repent and go to Confession before we receive Holy Communion.”
tampaorthodox.org/sacrament_of_confession.html
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dzheremi
Guest
Does anyone here seriously believe that the Orthodox would disagree with the idea that we should confess before receiving? 
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Bookcat
Guest
I am not going to respond to all of the post there above – too much there and it is too late – and I am sick (ill) but I will note that --I think rather one will find such lists among Eastern Orthodox indeed (things like fornication, apostasy, adultery, murder these are going to make it onto all of them I would say). Speaking objectively of course. Culpability is another question --and that is something that is recognized I dare say too --east and west.
But again getting back to the question that was asked --the subject of the this thread is the Eastern Catholic Churches --and Christians --and in such case one certainly has very very clear lists of grave matters for serious sin (one can simply go through the Catechism of the Catholic Church for a good deal of them). We share the same Catholic Faith (noting of course various good differences among the Catholic Churches of course).
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Bookcat
Guest
One must view it as the* Catholic Church* views such.
As to the question that was the subject of the tread --such has been answered by referring to how the Catholic Church answers this question (East and West).
One is not to receive Holy Communion if one has committed a serious sin --until one has gone to confession and been absolved (more was noted but that is in the fuller posts I posted above)
And by the way one which one will find Eastern Orthodox writers too agreeing with such.
Example: one from an Eastern ORTHODOX Priest and Pastor of an Orthodox Parish:
“Of course, should we fall into serious sin we must repent and go to Confession before we receive Holy Communion.”
tampaorthodox.org/sacrament_of_confession.html
As to the question that was the subject of the tread --such has been answered by referring to how the Catholic Church answers this question (East and West).
One is not to receive Holy Communion if one has committed a serious sin --until one has gone to confession and been absolved (more was noted but that is in the fuller posts I posted above)
And by the way one which one will find Eastern Orthodox writers too agreeing with such.
Example: one from an Eastern ORTHODOX Priest and Pastor of an Orthodox Parish:
“Of course, should we fall into serious sin we must repent and go to Confession before we receive Holy Communion.”
tampaorthodox.org/sacrament_of_confession.html
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dzheremi
Guest
Does anyone here seriously think that the Orthodox or any Eastern or Oriental Church or even individual Christian would disagree with the idea that we should confess before receiving?
We should confess any time we have something to confess! It’s necessary for the soul, just all the sacraments.
We should confess any time we have something to confess! It’s necessary for the soul, just all the sacraments.
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ByzCathCantor
Guest
How have you come to this conclusion?
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ConstantineTG
Guest
This is the problem with Latin legalism. There are canons and they are blindly applied for all. No ifs, no buts. That is why you have this approach of “confess first, then receive Communion”. It doesn’t matter how you lived your entire life, it doesn’t matter where you are in your spiritual journey. You could have been immaculately conceived, lived without sin for 30 years, and if you sin once that is classified as “mortal” for whatever reason, you need to confess because you are unworthy. And if you do not confess you will go to hell for that one mortal sin.Oh, good. I was unaware of this. It was very much impressed upon me as a Latin Catholic that you go to confession, then receive the Eucharist, and if you miss confession, too bad for you. You sit it out and think about why you can’t take it. That this deprivation is, in essence, a part of the penance involved for your sin. (I have no problem with this teaching, btw.)
So, uh…why are we arguing, then?
As I said in my last post, perhaps legalism is not the best word for this phenomenon, then. Fine. I am not wedded to it. Use whatever word you’d like to instead.
By “legalism”, though, I am referring to the difference between seeing the individual as a person and seeing the individual as fitting into a particular conventionalized category (e.g., being “in grace” or “out of grace”, or any other binary categorization). I have never once been asked by my father in the Coptic Orthodox Church whether or not I am in a “state of grace”. I have never heard those words come out of his mouth. Chances are they wouldn’t have to because he knows my struggles because I have been to confession with him, and anyway we talk and he generally knows where I’m at. This part is not really any different than it was with my old Father of Confession in the Latin Church, a wonderful Dominican priest named Fr. Augustine. The approach to confession, however, is.
While this may be true in the general (stereotypical?), I am not sure what it has to do with our conversation, unless you object to my characterization of the Latin Church as seeing its communicants as either “in grace” or “not in grace”, as two separate categories by which they are either deemed fit for communion or unfit, and have penances assigned according to a preexisting taxonomy of sins. That was my experience in the Latin Church (five years, hundreds of confessions, etc), anyway, and it is all foreign to the way I have been experiencing confession and communion in the Coptic Orthodox Church since being baptized. Your mileage may vary.
That is Latin legalism.
The East doesn’t look at it that way. You work with a spiritual father. The canons are there but then the spiritual father will decide which applies to you and which doesn’t based on where you are in your spiritual journey. Maybe you cannot fast from dairy during Lent, perhaps you are not spiritually prepared for that. You won’t be held to the strict fasting then. The same when it comes for Communion. What prepares one to approach including their “worthiness” is based on their entire Christian life, not one act. It is a given fact that we are all subject to the passions and we will falter time and again. But it is not a given that one needs to strictly go to confession before one is worthy to receive Communion. Confession is seen in the context of the entire life of the person, not just that legalistic “you committed an offense, therefore you need to do this.” If one confesses regularly, fasts, prays, reads the Bible, etc., the it doesn’t matter if there is or there isn’t a Confession between the time one sins and the time one receives Communion. It isn’t a black-and-white process as with the West.
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Vico
Guest
All should note that these things said above are also true in the Latin Church:
*]There is no predefined list of ‘grave matters’ where if a person commits xyz they cannot receive.
*]Not taught: if you commit this sin, you can approach, if you commit this sin you cannot.
*]No one is worthy, all people sin.
*]The key is a genuine effort towards metanoia. Those who live in willfull, persistent sin with no intention of stopping or improving are the ones that should not approach.
*]If you are intent upon metanoia, you should be regularly seeing a confessor for guidance.
– The lack of charity towards God is the key, not the material sin.
– All sin in various ways, intentionally and unintentionally.
– Firm intention to sin no more is part of metanoia.
– Regular sacrament of confession is good.
Example:
Apostolic Constitution *Paenitemini *Of The Supreme Pontiff Paul VI, On Fast And Abstinence (1966)The kingdom of God announced by Christ can be entered only by a “change of heart” (“metanoia”) that is to say through that intimate and total change and renewal of the entire man—of all his opinions, judgments and decisions—which takes place in him in the light of the sanctity and charity of God, the sanctity and charity which were manifested to us in the Son and communicated fully.(34)
The invitation of the Son to “metanoia” becomes all the more inescapable inasmuch as He not only preaches it but Himself offers an example. Christ, in fact, is the supreme model for those doing penance. He willed to suffer punishment for sins which were not His but those of others.(35)
vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-vi_apc_19660217_paenitemini_en.html
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lssanjose
Guest
Another +1. I’ve embraced the fact of having a spiritual father. Because of my schedule, I’ve been unable to meet up with him: one of the most generous men I’ve ever met. I actually ran into one of his old parishioners, who happened to convert to Orthodoxy. She kept telling me what a good man he was to her parents.
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ConstantineTG
Guest
Definitely.
As one of our priest mentioned one time, the Latin approach has been to take something, take it apart, then analyze and analyze and over analyze every little bit. The Byzantine approach is to take a step back and look at the big picture. That is why in the Byzantine faith we celebrate as one of the 12 great feasts the Entrance of the Theotokos to the Temple. There is no scriptural evidence of this, and even the factual historical evidence is suspect. But for us we do not celebrate this feast because we look at the event in isolation and argue whether it did happen or not and look for evidence. We look at it as how it relates to our entire faith and what is the significance of our belief about it, rather than microanalyzing things like historical evidences.
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lssanjose
Guest
I like using the term holistic, as a way of describing the Byzantine Tradition. The late reverend Kucharek (who changed rites to work with the Slavic missions) reflects this big picture attitude, when I read his Byzantine Catechism For Adults. He was discussing the possibility of extra terrestrial life; and mentioned the mindless details shouldn’t be squabbled over. The same thing was said about the exact age of the earth.
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TrueLight
Guest
And Latins do? If that was the case there wouldn’t be so many devotions based on private revelations.
The problem with a lot of these discussions is that they don’t seem to be able to occur without some (not all) people criticizing Roman Catholics.
Can we have a discussion without implying that the Eastern way is better than the Western way even if you believe it?
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lssanjose
Guest
It may appear as denigration, but he’s just providing a descriptive explanation of the Latin approach to certain things.
Like I said, earlier: a lot of what I’ve encountered in the Latin rite doesn’t make sense to me, holistically, but I don’t say it’s wrong, invalid, or “bad.”
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ConstantineTG
Guest
Why do you think what I said about the Latin way, which is the truth by the way, a bad thing? You live it, right? Was there something negative about what I said? Or are you slighted because an Easterner said something about the Latin faith (who also happened to live the first 33 years of his life as a Latin)? Maybe you’d understand why we are offended by Bookcat’s false assertions. But there is nothing wrong with what I said. Did I say the Latin approach was wrong? I contrasted the difference and that is the truth. Latins like to piece things apart and really define everything to the letter. The Byzantine faith is all about, as lssanjose termed it, the holistic approach. The Latin Fathers felt that the legalistic, microanalysis approach is best, God bless them for it.
I mean, we can even look at the Eucharist as an example. The Latins believe and teach that the Words of Institution confect the Eucharist, that at the pronunciation of the words make the bread then Eucharist, and then the wine the Eucharist. The Byzantine approach is to simply say the entire Anaphora brings us the Eucharist. We don’t even care to p(name removed by moderator)oint the exact moment when Jesus becomes present. Is it at the Words of Institution? At the Epiclesis? At the elevation? Ultimately what we care about is that the entire Anaphora which is a coming together of the prayers of those gathered coming together and calling on God to remembrance, which is when He acts on His promise. We know Christ is present in the Eucharist at the end of the Anaphora, we don’t need to know precisely when. We are fine with that. It is just the culture of the faith, if you wish to call it that. Whether one is better than the other, who knows. For the Latins they think it is necessary to make that precise determination. For the Byzantines, it is not. That is just the way it is.
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ConstantineTG
Guest
And to add, this is why people do not get why Orthodox allow use of contraceptives and divorce. It is the holisitc approach. They don’t just go, “contraceptives, no matter what you do or say, they are evil.” Or, “divorce, no matter what you say or do, it cannot happen.” The acceptance of these practices are a result of something other than a “it’s this way and no other way” approach. Again, the holisitc approach to the entire life of a Christian is taken into consideration. For contraceptives, they do not see using a condom any different from using NFP. If you are avoiding conception, you are avoiding conception, no matter what method you use. And openness to life is seen in the context of the entire marriage, not every individual act of sex. And of course you have to account for the person’s entire spirituality. Are they able to keep their passions in check? If they can, then abstinence is a better approach and would be told to do that. If they cannot, then something must be done. You cannot force abstinence on someone who cannot. They will only fail and the overall picture of one’s spirituality will be dragged down.
Same with divorce, the Orthodox do not want divorce. But it happens, people end their marriages. An insistence of someone who does not live with their spouse anymore as still being married is just a lie. If they cannot be reconciled then they have broken Christ’s commandment. So they committed sin and therefore they must do penance for it. But what then? Force them to remain single? If they can, then yes. That is the ideal, not to get remarried. But if they cannot, then wouldn’t it be beneficial for them to get a second marriage that is blessed by the Church rather than for them to sleep with other people anyway and maybe they will settle with one person but they will never marry that person or marry that person through civil courts. But because the Church refuses to recognize them, they leave the Church and never return. So how is that better than allowing for divorce? How did we help save that person’s soul? As St. Paul said, it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
Same with divorce, the Orthodox do not want divorce. But it happens, people end their marriages. An insistence of someone who does not live with their spouse anymore as still being married is just a lie. If they cannot be reconciled then they have broken Christ’s commandment. So they committed sin and therefore they must do penance for it. But what then? Force them to remain single? If they can, then yes. That is the ideal, not to get remarried. But if they cannot, then wouldn’t it be beneficial for them to get a second marriage that is blessed by the Church rather than for them to sleep with other people anyway and maybe they will settle with one person but they will never marry that person or marry that person through civil courts. But because the Church refuses to recognize them, they leave the Church and never return. So how is that better than allowing for divorce? How did we help save that person’s soul? As St. Paul said, it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
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dzheremi
Guest
I have a feeling you are probably not going to like this perspective, but I would take this as more evidence of the difference between the East and the West. While there are some very apparitions in the East or Orient (the appearance of the Theotokos at Zeitoun in Egypt comes to mind), private revelations are not really looked at the same way, and are certainly not the source of devotions. So I don’t think this is a very good example of how the Latins and the Easterners are similar.
Couldn’t we just as easily say that the problem is that some people take the idea that the East and the West are different to mean that one is better than the other, rather than just different? I mean, I’m not going to lie: Now that you brought it up, I think the East is better, in the sense of being a healthier spirituality that is (not coincidentally) truly the preservation and continuation of the apostolic faith in ways that Western Christianity is not…but that is only true in so far as the West hasn’t preserved the faith unchanged. In other words, it’s not something inherent in the West, but a result of development away from a common model of being Christian (that is to say, of living), with each side becoming in some ways estranged from the other until we have the kind of situation we have today, where we’re arguing about all this stuff on a messageboard for some reason instead of just hurling anathemas at each other and then calling it a day like our fathers did.
We can have a conversation where nobody implies that one is better than the other. We cannot have a conversation in which Eastern or Oriental Christians stop seeing the faith and the world as they do. That would be just as impossible as having a conversation in which Latin Catholics cease to post Latin Catholic views, even while trying to relate to the non-Latins around them, as we have seen in many, many posts in this thread. We’re all just people, after all.
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ConstantineTG
Guest
Ah, if only…instead of just hurling anathemas at each other and then calling it a day like our fathers did.
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