Editor’s Introduction

This is the printed text of the general confession Father John of Kronstadt heard from hundreds of penitents at once in Andreevsky Cathedral, a practice so sought-after, and so imitated in garbled form by hearsay, that a listener named Sergei Okhotsky finally wrote it down from memory and from notes gathered over repeated visits, checked his transcript against copies already circulating around Kronstadt, and published it, since Father John himself had never put it into print.

The instruction moves in two movements, each opening onto a prayer read aloud to the assembled penitents. The first turns on King David: his sin, Nathan’s rebuke, his tears, and the Fiftieth Psalm he left the Church as a pattern of contrition. The second turns on King Manasseh, carried captive to Babylon in chains before he came to himself and repented. Between the two, Father John states plainly what a priest’s absolution is and is not (a real act, granted or withheld according to whether the penitent’s sorrow is genuine), and before either prayer begins, he reminds his hearers exactly who is listening: Christ Himself, invisibly present, whose Body and Blood rest on the altar as he speaks.

The edition Okhotsky printed also carried footnotes identifying the historical and sectarian figures Father John names in passing (Metropolitan Isidor, Archbishop Nikanor, the Pashkovites, the Tolstoyans), reproduced here as part of the original page.