by Fr. Silviu

Let me start this by saying that Communion is not the privilege of the few, but the common life of the entire Church, the very substance and sustenance of the Church. What does this mean? It means that we cannot receive Communion if we are not Orthodox, but also, even if we are Orthodox, we should not receive Communion if we have stepped away from the life of the Church; that is, until we are reconciled and reunited with Her. We Orthodox can step away from the Church in different ways: physically by not attending services (according to the first Ecumenical Council one breaks away from the Church after a month of absence), but also through egregious sins and/or through darkness in our life. Yet, the substance of all of these ways of separating from the Church is one: we turn our attention and effort away from Christ on to ourselves. And the Church always looks to Christ. Then we need confession. Confession is the sacrament for our reconciliation and reunion with the Church. It is not a blessing to take Communion, nor simply a dumping of our sins (only to take them on again). It is a (re)turn of our being—of our attention and effort—toward Christ. This is why we seek confession: not to receive Communion, but to become part of the Church again; Communion simply comes with this reintegration into the Church. This is the reason for which in our Tradition there is no universal rule about how often we confess. We confess whenever we feel ourselves burdened by sin and/or darkness and every time we have stopped attending church for a month or more. At different times in our lives this could mean we confess very often, at other times it could mean we confess more rarely. Therefore, it is essential to develop a good conscience, which will guide us toward confession whenever the time has come. A good conscience is a conscience which is focused on Christ, and—as opposed to what our liturgy calls an “evil conscience”—does not do self-focus, self-judgment, self-condemnation, or self-hatred (God forbid!). A good conscience will place our sins and our darkness in the light of Christ. When I develop a good conscience I hate the sin that I have done and the darkness in which I find myself, and not myself. My own self I give to Christ in real compunction and repentance and peace.

Parents, it is a major mistake to force your children to take Communion after the age of 7 or 8. They should take Communion until that age as often as they can. (Yet, even before this age they should slowly learn to fast before it, eating and drinking less and less on Sunday mornings, and also not immediately before the Divine Liturgy. Certainly we do not feed our children in church or during the Divine Liturgy! Not even suckling babies have to be fed so often that they have to breastfeed after the Divine Liturgy has started!) 

After the age of 7 or 8 the most important Christian gift a parent can give their children is to help them become aware of their own sinfulness, of their imperfection, of their need for God. There is nothing more dangerous to one’s spiritual health (and even psychological health) and nothing more contrary to Christ and the Church than the lack of an awareness of one’s shortcomings, of one’s faults, of one not being perfect. This is why the Church is asking children to have confessions after this age. Parents, if you force your older children to take Communion without confession, you not only rob them of this extraordinary gift, thus hindering their proper maturation, but you can even condemn them to terrible illnesses of soul and body, as the Apostle puts it: “Let a human discern himself, and let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup in this manner. For anyone who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment upon himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. It is because of this that many among you are weak and ill, and some have even fallen asleep [that is, have died]. But if we discerned ourselves truly, we would not be judged.” (1 Cor 11:28-31) 

Of course, this also goes to us grown-ups; we, too, have to approach the chalice with self-discernment. It also follows that a human who approaches the chalice worthily is not a human without sin, but it is a human with self-discernment, a human who knows himself or herself to be sinful. Of course, this self-knowledge is not in a complacent and indifferent manner. But in the manner which is acquired by standing in front of Christ after we have dropped all pretense and all means of concealment and self-justification. 

This is why in our parish—as it is the practice in the Orthodox world in general—we prepare for Communion as the Church has seen fit, which means that we do what the Church does: we keep the fasts, stay away from sins, certainly the big ones—or, as a holy man put it to me once, we ought to stay away from “being mean”—we fast before Communion, and we have a standing blessing of our Priest confessor to commune. The standing blessing of your Priest confessor is a confirmation of self-discernment. How often or how precisely one receives this blessing is between them and their Priest confessor. Also, this is why we do not receive Communion if we have been away from the Church for more than a month (of course, with the exception of blessed reasons, such as sickness/convalescence). If this is the case, we will first have to reunite with the Church through confession.

It also follows from the above that, when we approach confession, we ought to have self-discernment, an awareness of our sinfulness. If we do not know what to say in confession, or if we say platitudes, this may be due to our inexperience, which is fine. But if it is due to not being able to discern our sinfulness, then we have to have a deeper discussion with our spiritual father or mother. When it comes to older children, parents have to talk to their children before the children come to confession. Parents have to teach them to discern themselves and to grow that good conscience which I already mentioned. It is ok if at the beginning they come with lists. They and I will work together from that point on to clean that conscience where, with the parents' continuing help, they grow to be mature in Christ, to be people of peace, responsible, and noble—people who hate sin but never themselves or others. 

Finally, let me say this. By the above I did not mean to suggest that kids are without expressions of self-will or manifestations of the ego until the age of 7 or 8, but rather this is because until this age these manifestations are not their fault. Until this age the guilt for such evil things belongs only to the parents. It is for raising their children without guidance and/or through praises and belittlings; in other words, for not raising them to be clear-headed and good-hearted, noble and unselfish, ever more responsible and more mature. Even after this age, much of how children are (and even grown-ups, all the way through old age) is still the responsibility of the parents, mostly due to the lingering of the wounds parents inflicted on their vulnerable children through the same mistakes mentioned above.