@The Liturgist, to your point above about penances not being automatic, that may be true; but certainly in my training I was taught to always, without exception, give some form of penance.
Penances are given every time in the Roman Rite and I suppose your seminary was influenced by the Roman praxis. Which surprises me because usually more recent Anglican practices tend to incline towards EO usages in the US.
This is with the exception of
@HTacianas who wrote, "it is a pre-requisite to the Eucharist." This may theoretically, and historically, be the case in EO, OO & RC churches. But is it really a common practice to deny communion to people who had not confessed to the pastor?
The spiritual practice of the Russian Orthodox Church is to use the sacrament of reconciliation frequently; the rule at most in the Western US seems to be to reconcile at a minimum within four weeks of each partaking of the Eucharist. The Russians are one of those Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches that very seldom impose penances, particularly on
conwertsy. The main thing people get penanced for in the Russian Orthodox Church from what I have read is adultery.
In general I regard as extremely healthy the Eastern Orthodox system of tightly coupled sacraments , where Baptism, Chrismation and Communion ideally follow each other directly, and where for those above an age of comprehension, reconciliation is followed by the Eucharist, at a high frequency, ideally once a week most of the year and twice a week in Lent. Russian priests also tend to be extremely gentle. However, some convert priests, emphasis on the keyword “some” I have found lack the calm, loving nature one associates with most Orthodox priests, whether they are converts or “cradle Orthodox.” But it always amazes me how “chill” so many Russian clergy are, especially Russian hieromonks and archimandrites; in contrast, Romanian hieromonks and archimandrites burst with joyous emotions and energy. I like both groups. It is also interesting to note the Romanian Orthodox Church is the second largest after Russia (30 million Romanian Orthodox vs. over 200 million Russian Orthodox).
So basically, if you have the opportunity to partake of the Eucharist several times a week and do auricular confession/reconciliation weekly, it can be a great blessing.
There is one other reason why frequent reconciliation is the norm in Russian parishes, and it has to do with the Jesus Prayer and Hesychasm and personal prayer rules. Not everyone is pursuing hesychasm of course, but for those who are, frequent confession is a must, because there are numerous traps including tje very dangerous trap of pride, that one can fall into. And also, many people struggle to get a prayer rule in place which they can keep. Some also have health problems which require some derogation from Orthodox fasting practices. For these reasons, one will see some monks in pursuit of hesychasm spend a substantial amount of time each day talking to their starets or gerons or geronda, an elder or elderess, who Russian Orthodox will typically seek out, but for the laity, the need to see their starets is greatly reduced. A famous starets is St. Seraphim of Sarov, who also developed a new prayer rule involving 200 instances of the Orthodox version of the Ave Maria prayer, but without any of the visual imagination that accompanies the decades of the Rosary in Roman Rite practice, as Orthodox Christians believe the use of the visual imagination in prayer can put one at risk for what the Russians call “prelest” which loosely translated means spiritual or religious delusion.