A dilemma...

[Principal Moo]

As most of you know, I live in Hanoi, Vietnam and we do not have a priest here. Every few months, a priest from Russian Orthodox church will visit to celebrate the Divine Liturgy. The priest varies; it's usually one of two English-speaking Russian priests.

The past few months, I have been conversing with a priest I met through FaceBook. He is a legit Orthodox priest and he has been hearing my confession (we video chat every couple of weeks and he hears my confession). He considers himself my spiritual father.

Today, we had the Divine Liturgy and during my confession, I informed Father that my last confession was a week ago. He questioned this and when I told him about the priest that I have been talking to, Father told me that it was not possible to conduct Confession through the internet. So, I was asked to confess all of the sins since my last confession in front of a priest.

After the Divine Liturgy, Father told me that it is okay to consult with the priest via the internet, but that I cannot make my Confession this way.

My dilemma: what do I do? My heart is telling me to follow the instructions that I received today, but I would then feel bad about the discussion that I would need to have with the priest that I have been communicating with through the internet.

Any advice is appreciated!

 

[rusmeister]

I think you could confess your sins, but not receive the Sacrament of Confession, via video. There are real purposes to having physical presense of things and people. Our Faith is a very material one. In general, virtual practice of sacramental things is not possible, but telling your sins to a trusted person seems perfectly acceptable to me. It depends on trust and your basis for trusting.

 

[ArmyMatt]

you can confess your sins to anyone at anytime. this goes the same for getting advice. but the sacrament can only be done in person.

so I would keep talking via the net to this one priest, but confess only to the one who can make it to you.

 

[Jesus4Madrid]

Good advice from Rus and Matt.

 

[gzt]

I would say that the opinion of the priest who you are in actual physical contact with is the one you should defer to. A lot of people are also immediately wary of spiritual advice over the internet - not that it's always bad and the guy you're talking to is suspicious - but that there are some bad actors out there and it's turned a lot of people off to the idea, and that might be reflected in your priest's attitude.

 

[Dorothea]

My spiritual father is in a different state, and so I confess over the phone, and that is accepted according to my SF. When we were in his state this summer, my family did confession at the church in person.