Questions tor Penitents,
According to the Ten Commandments.
Do you constantly have the thought of God in mind and the fear of God in your heart?
Is your faith in God shaken by scepticism or doubt?
Do you question the holy tenets of the Orthodox Faith?
Do you ask God to strengthen your faith?
Do you despair of God’s mercy?
Do you pray to God every day, morning and night? Is your prayer zealous?
Do you always attend divine services whenever possible? Do you miss them without
good reason?
Do you prefer religious books and in fact do you read them?
Have you read atheistic and heretical books out of sinful curiosity?
When the Church requests it, do you willingly make donations to charitable causes and to
the Church?
Have you consulted fortune-tellers? Have you taken part in seances?
Have you forgotten about the most important thing in life, i.e. preparation for eternity and
your answer to God if you have given yourself up to vanity, sloth, pleasure and
carelessness?
Second Commandment
Does God take first place with you? Perhaps God does not take first place, but something
else, for example, the accumulation of money, the acquisition of property, amusement
and entertainment, food and drink, clothes, self-adornment, the urge to devote attention to
yourself, to play the leading part, to receive praise, to spend your time in distractions, in
reading frivolous books, etc?
Are you distracted from God by a passion for television, movies, the theater, card-games?
Perhaps because of worrying about yourself or your family you forget about God
and fail to please Him and do not carry out what is required of you by the Church?
If so, that means you are serving an idol and that it, not God, has first place with you.
Perhaps art, sport or study take first place with you? Perhaps some passion (love of
money, gluttony, carnal love) has taken possession of your heart? Have you made an idol
of yourself out of pride or egotism? Examine yourself.
Third Commandment
Do you use foul language in ordinary everyday conversation? Have you been thoughtless
and irreverent with the name of God or, what is worse, have you treated something holy
as a joke? Or, God forbid, in a fit of bitterness or anger or despair have you given way to
impudent grumbling at God or even reviling Him?
Have you sworn an oath and then broken it?
Have you given in to despondency?
Do you pray absent-mindedly or inattentively?
Fourth Commandment
Do you violate the sanctity of Sundays and great feast-days which have been fixed by the
Church by working for gain or profit?
Instead of attending divine services on feast-days, do you spend time entertaining
yourself, e.g. at a ball or the theater, movies or some gathering where there is no mention
of God?
Have you yourself arranged such entertainments and gatherings and thus distracted
people from attendance at church?
Do you conscientiously attend divine services? Do you come to church late, at the middle
or end of the service? Do you leave it early? Do you attend church on Sundays and feast-days?
Do you help the poor and those in need?
Do you violate the fasts?
Have you been drunk or used drugs?
Fifth Commandment
Have there been times when you were disrespectful towards your parents, or inattentive
to their advice and concern? Have you taken care of them in their illnesses and old age?
If your parents have died, do you often pray in church or at home for the repose of their
souls?
Have you been disrespectful towards the pastors of the Church? Have you criticized
them? Have you become embittered against them when they reminded you of eternity, of
preparation for it, of the salvation of your soul, of sins; or when they call on you to be
obedient to the Church and her rules?
Have you insulted someone older than you?
Sixth Commandment
You have not physically killed anyone in the literal sense, but perhaps you were the cause
of someone’s death indirectly: you could have helped someone poor or sick but did not;
you did not feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, take in a stranger, clothe the naked,
visit the sick and those in jail (Matt. 25: 34-46)?
Have you committed spiritual murder, i.e. have you led someone astray from the proper
path; have you been enticed by heresy or schism; have you tempted someone to sin?
Have you killed someone spiritually by a display of malice and hatred?
Do you forgive those who offend you?
Do you bear malice and resentment in your heart for long?
Do you blame yourself in everything or only in some things?
Have you had recourse to unlawful operations (abortions), which is also killing, a sin of
both husband and wife?
Seventh Commandment
Have you lived with someone of the opposite sex in a carnal relationship without having
had a church marriage?
Do you conduct yourself freely and loosely with members of the opposite sex?Have you defiled yourself by giving in to impure and lewd thoughts and desires? Or by
reading pornographic books or looking at pornographic pictures? This includes sinful
songs, suggestive dances, dirty jokes, movies, public performances, immodest dress, etc.
Have you committed impure acts by yourself or with others?
Have you had carnal relations with another person?
Have you engaged in unnatural practices (bestiality, transvestism, sodomy)?
Eighth Commandment
Have you taken someone else’s property in a direct or indirect way? — by fraud, diverse
cunning, conspiracy?
Perhaps you have not done what you were obliged to do in return for the recompense you
received?
Have you excessively yearned for material goods without wishing to share them with
others who need them?
Has miserliness taken possession of your soul?
Have you accepted stolen goods?
Have you disposed of others’ goods when they were entrusted to you?
Ninth Commandment
Have you slandered your neighbor? Have you criticized others, spoken scandal or abused
them for what you imagine are their sins and vices?
Do you like to hear bad rumours about someone and then readily spread them, being
allured by gossip and idle chatter?
Do you tell lies? Do you always try to be truthful?
Tenth Commandment
Do you envy others? Envy always leads to malice and hatred and is capable of leading
you to commit reckless acts, even killing.
I went to different websites about it but I still don't know what to say. I am supposed to go either tomorrow or next Saturday. I don't want to do the wrong thing. I didn't get much training on HOW to be Orthodox other than books and websites. I am hoping that this new church, St. George Antiochian has some kind of classes or lessons or something.
