Father Peter, Abbot of the Essex Monastery, speaks to us about the spiritual father.

 

Father Peter, Abbot of the Essex Monastery, speaks to us about the spiritual father.

“Elder Sophrony had a very important teaching about how we should approach our spiritual fathers so that we do not waste precious time and spiritual energy.

Often, people seek from the confessor only psychological comfort—they simply want to talk. Yet the meeting with one’s spiritual father is an exceedingly holy encounter, if we know how to live it as it should be lived.

Many people come, for example, to confession unprepared, and when they sit before the priest, they begin to think about what they have to say. Is this not a great loss, and does it not show a lack of reverence for that moment?

Elder Sophrony said that the person who wishes to confess should first pray before going to the spiritual father: ‘Lord, grant that through Your servant I may know the path in which I should walk, and give me a beneficial spiritual word.’ And the priest, in turn, if he prays, ‘Lord, give me a word for Your people, whom You have redeemed with Your Precious Blood,’ then—said the Elder—this meeting becomes a prophetic event. Then God Himself speaks within this Mystery. If both sides pray, he said, even the stones will speak.

It is a great sin to lower this Mystery to a merely human level, to turn it into a simple psychological conversation and exhaust the priest, who is not called to this. In this way, people lose the chance to truly benefit from their confession.” 👉Translation from Greek of the words of Father Petros, abbot of Essex Monastery, excerpt from the conference held in Greece on January 26, 2026, at Laodigitria, entitled: "The Axes of Spiritual Life According to Saint Sophrony."

👉Source: "Π.Πετρος 26-1-26 Καθηγούμενος ιερας μονης τιμιου προδρόμου Εσσεξ Video," from the YouTube channel "π.Βαρνάβας ομιλίες."