How to find a confessor?

- In the Gospel the Lord often says, "You look and you don't see, you listen and you don't hear. We all look at the same things, but we all see different things. But there is still one central idea in what we look at: God. In every event we need to see solely what God has put into it, not what we have made up for ourselves. Very dangerous in this sense is our personal creativity. Whoever tries to understand God by logic will always be stumped, because our logic is a very limited tool. Basil the Great said: "I have not suffered from anyone as much as I have suffered from bad teachers." Of course, you should find someone to consult. And how can you tell if this is your clergyman or not? Not by what he says, not by how he says it, but by what happens to you when you communicate with him, whether you have changed qualitatively or not. How do you define a good doctor? Whether you are recovering or not, whether you are better or worse. Your confessor should produce a change in you for the better. If that does not happen, it means you are doing something wrong; you are making an effort but not getting results.

In my opinion, Christians will be the first to stand in the Last Judgment. The judgment will begin with us, because we have been given something that has not been given to others. And not only have we not multiplied this precious gift, but we have diminished it by our unfaithful attitude toward it.

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov