How to repent of the sin of murder
A person can be forgiven for any crime if he repents of it. While a person lives on earth, he has a chance to save his soul and inherit eternal life. Let us remember that the first to enter heaven after Christ was the thief hanging on the cross on the right.
We do not know what specific crimes this man committed, but it is clear that they were evil deeds. It is likely that he was also a murderer. And literally a few seconds were enough for this man to repent, confess Christ and be saved.
Christ and the Thieves
Every person who has committed the sin of murder or any other serious offense should follow the example of this robber. But to do this, you need to understand what true repentance is. Repenting does not mean just naming or identifying your bad deed. Repentance presupposes, first of all, awareness of the full harm of what has been done and the baseness of the fall. A person may become very afraid from realizing what he has done, but without this fear repentance is impossible.
About sins in Orthodoxy:
- Eight deadly sins and the fight against them
- Sin of Gluttony
- Sin of pride
The second stage is to firmly decide never to repeat what was done again in your life. A person must promise both himself and God that he would rather die, but never again commit the crime of which he repents.
Interesting! Sometimes it is easier for great sinners who have committed serious sins, such as murder, to repent than for ordinary people who have drowned in many small sins.
Heavy sin falls like a huge stone on the human soul and deprives it of peace. This turmoil in the soul can awaken the conscience of even the most inveterate villain. And then it is very important to come to God with your experiences and repent. The Lord came into the world so that sinners could save their souls, so you should never despair and think that Christ will not forgive.
The third stage of repentance is to bear fruit. The holy prophet John the Baptist tells us through the Gospel about the need for the fruits of repentance. In real life, this means that a person must atone for the evil he has done with some good deeds.
Repentance for sins
Why does Orthodoxy force me to forgive rapists and murderers?
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes.
Once an article was published in Thomas about how to deal with condemnation . But one of our readers still had questions about the basic principle of such a struggle - the separation of sin from the sinner. Here is her letter:
I have no right to enter into an argument with the authoritative opinion of a priest, but still, will someone really explain to me how one can separate an action from the person himself? Serial killers, war criminals, do they also have moral standards and are they good deep down? Or how? It's one thing to have your wallet stolen. OK. Here a person can be justified. But the killer, the same “Kerch shooter,” how can one understand and separate his act from his personality? After all, he deliberately and cold-bloodedly committed this crime. It is he, a concrete, not an abstract person. What does it mean?
Marina
At our request, Archpriest Pavel Velikanov responds to Marina’s letter:
One of the first people to enter heaven was a notorious criminal and sinner. He was crucified next to Christ on Golgotha. Just before his death, he believed in the Savior and repented - and received salvation from the Lord. You ask, how can you not condemn terrible villains? But just ask yourself a question: didn’t Christ die for this terrible sinner?
Making exceptions, dividing people into reliable and hopeless is our human habit. God doesn't have blacklists. He died for everyone.
In the words of Christ, “Judge not, lest you be judged” (Matthew 7 :1-2) refers not only to minor offenses, but also to great sins. There is no difference between convicting a person for lying or convicting a serial killer who has brought so much evil to people.
Understand, Marina: the Lord gives freedom to man - he allows anyone to be what he wants, including bad ones. Let us remember the parable of the prodigal son. The father allowed his youngest son to become so dissolute: he gave him part of the inheritance, realizing that he would waste it! By our everyday standards, the son’s act showed the father’s failure as a parent, because he was unable to raise his child and prevent his moral death! But where we put a period in our judgment regarding father or son, the Gospel puts a comma. The youngest son returns, and the father joyfully accepts and forgives him. This parable is an illustration of how God treats us. The Lord does not give up on a person who has committed a crime, but continues to nourish, delight, and inspire him. A person, having polluted his soul with sins, himself refuses God’s love: it is not a source of joy for him, but, on the contrary, brings pain. But God does not stop loving even the most desperate maniac. He calls us to such unconditional love.
Many people often do not understand how one can not only not judge, but also love one’s enemy? Look how we behave with children. When a child does something wrong, we try to explain to him that he is behaving incorrectly. But do we really stop loving him when a child breaks a cup? You should also treat those whose actions you condemn.
It is not necessary to immediately “make yourself” an ascetic who loves everyone. To begin with, it is enough to see, recognize your initially hostile attitude and try not to be absorbed by it. It becomes much easier when you can see the depth in a person, realize that he is the same as you. It is not necessary to try to somehow specially show your affection towards someone whom you still condemn, because if it is feigned, then the person will feel this falseness. The main thing is that you are not the enemy in relation to the person who committed the offense.
I was once asked: “How can I not judge a person who says nasty things about children in a hospice if I consider him insensitive?” You can answer this way: we are all similar in one thing - we fall, get up and repent, fall again, get up again, this process is dynamic. Yesterday a person sinned, and today he already remembers his offense with pain in his heart. By calling a person insensitive, you have labeled him. The next time he shows a different side of himself, you will not be able to accept it, because you have become a hostage to your own condemnation. In such a situation, you can condemn his ideas, disagree with him, but you cannot make a transfer from a person’s words and actions to his personality, to the very essence, to the “core” of a person. Once you have done this, you have fixed a certain view of that person, thereby condemning him. This is the principle of separating sin from the sinner.
By judging a person - it doesn’t matter whether it’s your friend or a maniac - in your mind you assign a certain model of behavior to him, forbidding him to be different.
I remember a story from the patericon about a monk who fell into fornication. But the monk did not continue his sinful lifestyle, but renounced his sin and returned to the monastery. The abbot of this monastery had a revelation that by his fall this monk had shamed the devil - after all, he did not despair, did not ruin his soul, was not stuck in sin, but repented - and returned again to work in fasting and prayer. And thereby freed himself from sin.
In another patericon there is a story about a monk who never paid attention to attacks and reproaches in his direction. When his brothers asked him how he managed not to judge or get into arguments, they were surprised by the answer: “Why pay attention to these dogs?” His soul was so proud that he despised everyone. Pride, awareness of oneself as superior to another person is one of the reasons for condemnation. That is why condemnation is not a problem of the one who is condemned, but of the one who condemns. It seems to me that we are looking for a way to establish ourselves in our own eyes against the background of someone else’s misconduct - we are afraid to find ourselves in a position where there is no one to condemn. Therefore, do not try to destroy something bad through negative action - condemnation. You will only increase this evil. What is the right thing to do?
I remember one story. One girl secretly got a tattoo on her neck. When the mother saw it, she was beside herself with rage! But the grandfather, having heard what the noise was in the apartment, calmly said: “Congratulations!” Now you know what the point of no return is. It’s good that you learned this in such a difficult situation, and not in a more difficult one.” Mom and the girl are amazed - is grandpa really not angry? To which the grandfather replied: “I don’t condemn, but I don’t approve either. I just love you!".
Many of us, unfortunately, rejoice when someone stumbles: “Yeah, I knew for a long time that this would happen, you met my worst expectations!” It is not difficult to notice that such a phrase speaks not so much about the sinner as about the speaker, supposedly “the righteous and seer,” who in fact turns out to be only the source and bearer of “bad expectations.”
I was fortunate in my life to communicate with a person whom I could call an example of a Christian attitude towards a sinner - the late Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov). For many years he was the confessor of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. When communicating with a person, he did not pay attention to what is important to us - appearance, status, sinfulness or righteousness. Even knowing that the person had committed some immoral act, Father Kirill did not change his attitude towards him. He had the ability to step over what a person had done, not to focus on it, not to plunge the person into his sin even more. On the contrary, even in the most hopeless situation, when the sinner was on the verge of despair, the elder always gave him a hand of hope. Father Kirill showed by his attitude that if a person is alive, it means he still has the opportunity to change and be saved. Non-judgment is boundless mercy, the willingness to give a person a chance as many times as necessary.
What is considered murder in Orthodoxy?
In order to repent of murder, you need to clearly understand how Orthodoxy defines it. The explicit physical taking of someone's life is far from a complete definition. Failure to provide assistance to a suffering person and indifference to the suffering of another is also considered murder.
From a spiritual point of view, seducing someone from the true and good path, drawing someone into a sinful life, can be considered murder. These are not always obvious and understandable actions, and a person needs to carefully rethink his life in order to see such a sin.
Separately, we need to dwell on a very common type of sin, which is committed every day by many people and is still permitted by law. We are talking about abortion. Abortion is murder in its purest form, committed voluntarily by the child's parents.
Both the baby’s mother and father are responsible for such a decision, although the final decision always remains with the woman. However, if a man did not support the woman and because of his actions (or vice versa, inaction) and the woman committed an abortion, such a man must repent of killing his own child.
Monument to unborn children. Slovenia
Important! Despite the fact that murder is the gravest sin, sometimes you have to carefully review your entire life to understand where a person could have sinned against the sixth commandment.
About spiritual life:
- Russian Orthodox Church during the period of persecution
- How to venerate an icon correctly
- How to use Matrona of Moscow oil
Will God really forgive the murderer overnight?
Will God really forgive the murderer overnight?
Good afternoon, dear visitors of our Orthodox website “Family and Faith”!
It seems that every person asks the following questions: Will the Lord really forgive the cruel sinners who sinned all their lives, and before their death they repented?
L. Volkova, from the city of Tver, asked similar questions to Archpriest Alexander Shargunov, who is listed below:
Question: ─ One acquaintance brought me the words of a saint close to us in time, it seems, the Venerable Silouan of Athos: “If anyone robbed, killed, raped, let him come to God, and God will forgive him.” It turns out that a person has sinned all his life, and to him, as if nothing had happened, the Kingdom of God is presented to him. Whatever you want, I just can’t understand it. And I also have a question about prayer. How to learn to pray? I read from Gorky that he saw a woman in a church in Italy who literally spoke to an icon. According to the famous writer, this is an example of how religion can drive a person to madness. I'm just for religion. I believe that it has always been of great benefit to people. And without it - look what happens! I myself love to read the Bible. I consider myself a believer. Although, I admit, I often have doubts.
Answer: ─ The Kingdom of God is truly God’s, and not human. This should be enough to free us from all despondency and fear. But true repentance is required.
God is the One with whom you can talk. Moreover, He is the only one with whom we can talk in some of our most crushing moments in life. Because hidden in His unexplored depths is the mysterious ability of listening - far beyond all human understanding and attention.
Prayer is a gift of God. Christ Himself says: “Without Me you can do nothing.” And our first step should be to recognize that, closed in on ourselves, we cannot cross the threshold of mystery. If only because there is death in the world. He who prays knows that prayer supports us and makes us different throughout the day. All day and all life. Prayer helps to die as well as to live. It strengthens the one who is dying. Through it the One who died our death acts in order to give us His life. Like Christ's love, prayer is a gift that comes from above. She teaches us to serve people in order to make them closer to God. Through prayer, we can begin to see the world through the eyes of God Himself. From this gift many other gifts can be born. In a word, prayer is born from repentance, from deep truthfulness, in the hours of our exceptional enlightenment and clarity. But to this we must add one more thing, the most important thing: it is not we, Christians, who pray, but the Holy Spirit prays in us, as the Apostle Paul says, “with groanings that cannot be uttered.” It is good that you read Scripture, but to know God, it is not enough to treat Him as if He were a book. Because He is a Living Person. And this is revealed to us as we enter into fellowship with Him, fully responding to His call. Without this, the existence of God becomes problematic and so abstract that a person begins to ask himself: has God abandoned him? And in general, does God exist?
<< To the main page Questions for the priest >>
How to punish a murderer with magic
Take the black headscarf you wore at the coffin of the murdered man. Place three handfuls of grave soil in it and tie it with a knot. Find a grave in the cemetery with the name of the killer and leave a bundle of soil on it. If you don’t know the name of the killer, then this is not so important, because the Lord knows who killed the person. Just place a bundle of soil on an unmarked, abandoned grave, and you should say:
“Unmarked grave, take the damned soul of the One who killed (so-and-so), Who ruined the innocent soul. Shut up his bestial roar, Shut up his serpentine gaze. Let his blood become cold, his tongue become numb, the breath in his chest rise and his heart stop beating. Let this word find him, bring him to the grave, let the soul find no peace anywhere, Satan take him to hell. Lips. Teeth. Key. Lock. Language. Amen. Amen. Amen".
Orthodox Life
Many of us have deceased relatives and friends who did not belong to the Church of Christ during their lifetime. How to pray for them?
As is known, the Orthodox Church prays only for the baptized deceased who have remained faithful to the Church. According to the Church Charter, it is also forbidden to perform burial rites and church commemoration of suicides.
However, an Orthodox person, motivated by love for an unbaptized (or fallen from the Church) relative or friend, can perform a private prayer for the deceased, having secured the blessing of a priest. There have been cases in church history when, through the intense prayer of loved ones, the fate of the souls of suicides or unbaptized people was alleviated.
The fact that the souls of the unbaptized can receive considerable relief through the prayers of church people is known from the conversation of the Monk Macarius of Egypt with the skull of a pagan priest. One day Macarius was walking through the desert and saw a skull lying on the ground. The ascetic asked him: “Who are you?” The skull replied: “During my life I was the main pagan priest. When you, Abba, say a prayer for those in hell, we feel some relief.” Macarius asked: “What are these torments?” “We are standing in a great fire,” answered the skull, “and we do not see each other’s faces. When you pray for us, we begin to see those standing next to us, and this brings us some comfort.”
Of course, our prayer cannot be compared with the prayer of St. Macarius, just as our life cannot be compared with the life of an ascetic. But still, this story gives us hope that our prayerful commemoration of the unfortunate ones who died unbaptized will bring them some consolation.
Did the holy fathers allow for their spiritual children the possibility of private prayer for those dead who could not be remembered in a church meeting? Yes, such cases are known.
For example, the Monk Theodore the Studite allowed private prayer for them: “... Unless everyone in his soul prays for such people and gives alms for them” (1).
The Monk Leo of Optina allowed one of his spiritual children to remember his suicidal father with the following words: “Seek, O Lord, the lost soul of my father: if it is possible, have mercy! Your destinies are unsearchable. Do not make this my prayer a sin for me. But Thy holy will be done. Amen".
The Venerable Elder Ambrose of Optina recalled this incident in a letter to one nun: “According to church rules, a suicide should not be commemorated in church, but a sister and relatives can pray for him privately, as Elder Leonid (in schema – Leo) allowed Pavel Tambovtsev to pray for his parent his. Write out this prayer... and give it to the family of the unfortunate person. We know many examples that the prayer conveyed by Elder Leonid calmed and consoled many and turned out to be valid before the Lord.”
Let us note that in this case we are talking about a person who was spiritually nourished by the Monk Leo. Elder Ambrose allows the prayer of St. Leo to be used not by random people, but by close acquaintances of the nun. Such remembrance can only be done by someone who is deeply involved in the church and has received a blessing from a priest.
It is important that permission to pray for a suicide was given to his son, and not to some random person. It follows that such a feat of prayer is recommended only in relation to people who are especially close to the deceased - relatives, closest acquaintances.
In 2011, the Holy Synod blessed the use of the prayer of St. Leo of Optina for individual commemoration of relatives who committed the sin of suicide (2).
Let us also note that the prayer appeal to the martyr Uar of Egypt has long been rooted in the Russian Orthodox tradition. According to some versions of his life, the martyr has special boldness before God - to ask for remission of the sins of those who died without Baptism. Patriarch Alexy II spoke about the possibility of home prayer to Saint Uar for the unbaptized dead: “Recently, the veneration of the holy martyr Uar has become increasingly widespread. Chapels are built in his honor and icons are painted. From his life it follows that he had special grace from God to pray for unbaptized dead people. During the times of militant atheism in our country, many people grew up and died unbaptized, and their believing relatives want to pray for their repose. Such private prayer has never been prohibited” (3).
However, in the same report, His Holiness the Patriarch warns about a distorted view of the prayerful intercession of Saint Uar. An appeal to a martyr for help to the unbaptized dead can only be of a private and not a church nature, and cannot in any way replace the Sacrament of Baptism.
So, the Church does not prohibit home prayer for loved ones who died unbaptized or who committed the sin of suicide. We just need to remember that such prayer requires special spiritual alertness from us. If we combine with our prayer requests a pure life according to the Gospel commandments, abundant alms, sincere repentance, participation in the Church Sacraments, the Lord will not leave our sighs unheard and will give relief to the souls of people dear to us.
Sergey Komarov
Notes:
1) Here and below, quotes are given from the article by priest Konstantin Bufeev “On the Holy Martyr War and Church Prayer for the Non-Orthodox” // El. resource: https://www.pravoslavie.ru/42451.html 2) In 2011, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church blessed for the cell reading “The rite of prayerful consolation of relatives of those who died without permission.” The “Rite” also includes a prayer to St. Lev Optinsky. However, in the very following of the “Chin” there is no commemoration of the suicide, but there are only repentant prayers for his grieving relatives. 3) His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II. Speech at the Diocesan Assembly, 2003 // El. resource: https://patriarh-i-narod.ru/slovo-patriarha/doklady-na-eparkhialnyh-sobraniyah-patriarha-alexiya-ii/186-vystuplenie-na-eparkhialnom-sobranii-2003-g
