When it is said
It stands near the end of the Russian prayers before sleep, just before the last words said on lying down.
A Russian prayer book of 1912 calls it a confession to say in private, with the evening prayers or by itself.
Read slowly, its list can help you call your own sins to mind before confession.
Where it comes from
No author known
Where it comes from
Today’s prayer book names no author. Fr Pyotr Pchelintsev, a Russian priest who studied the history of these prayers, points to an earlier “Daily Confession of Sins”. That older confession is in a Slavonic book of psalms and prayers copied in the early 1500s, credited to Kallistos Xanthopoulos, a monk of the 1300s. Its teaching, Fr Pyotr writes, later became the basis of today’s prayer.
Morning, evening, or on its own
A book of psalms and prayers printed in Kiev in 1643 put an earlier form of the Daily Confession after the morning prayers. The Russian prayer book of 1912 gave a shorter form, to say in private, with the evening prayers or by itself. Today the Russian prayer book, and the English Jordanville Prayer Book, print it among the prayers before sleep.
Priest Pyotr Pchelintsev, The historical formation of the evening and morning prayers (2017, in Russian); Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, Prayer Book
Add your own
Beside this prayer, a Russian prayer book prints a word of advice from the Russian saint John of Kronstadt. The Church’s prayers list sins, he said, but not all of them. Often they leave out the very sins that bind us. We must name those sins ourselves when we pray, humbly, seeing clearly how serious they are.
Azbyka.ru, Prayers before sleep, with a commentary (in Russian)
What the words mean
“Eating in secret”
One sin on the list, “eating in secret”, sounds odd today. The commentary in a Russian prayer book explains it: breaking a fast by eating where no one sees. Another old word in the Slavonic means gathering more and more things that serve no use. The plain wording gives it as “clinging to things I do not need”.
Azbyka.ru, Prayers before sleep, with a commentary (in Russian)
The Scripture in it
Then I acknowledged my sin to You and did not hide my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Church Slavonic
Исповедаю Тебе Господу Богу моему и Творцу,
во Святей Троице Единому, славимому и покланяемому,
Отцу и Сыну и Святому Духу,
вся моя грехи, яже содеях во вся дни живота моего,
и на всякий час, и в настоящее время, и в прешедшия дни и нощи,
делом, словом, помышлением, объядением, пиянством, тайноядением, празднословием, унынием, леностию,
прекословием, непослушанием, оклеветанием, осуждением, небрежением,
самолюбием, многостяжанием, хищением, неправдоглаголанием, скверноприбытчеством, мшелоимством,
ревнованием, завистию, гневом, памятозлобием, ненавистию, лихоимством
и всеми моими чувствы: зрением, слухом, обонянием, вкусом, осязанием
и прочими моими грехи, душевными вкупе и телесными,
имиже Тебе Бога моего и Творца прогневах, и ближняго моего онеправдовах:
о сих жалея, винна себе Тебе Богу моему представляю, и имею волю каятися:
точию, Господи Боже мой, помози ми, со слезами смиренно молю Тя:
прешедшая же согрешения моя милосердием Твоим прости ми,
и разреши от всех сих, яже изглаголах пред Тобою, яко Благ и Человеколюбец.