The Reason of the Cooling of Faith in God May Be the Lack of Real Repentance for Some Sin

Questions to a priest on the Spas TV channel.

Protopriest Alexander Nikolsky.

A woman, let’s suppose, comes up to me, and says: now I haven’t taken Communion for a year already. I say: why? She says: I don’t know. I say: what sin did you commit a year ago? “I betrayed my husband, (well, for example), but I repented of it.” “What does it mean you have repented?” – “Well, I said about it in the Confession.” “Do you consider yourself wrong that you cheated on your husband?” – “No, you know, father, this betrayal has given me a lot”. I say: “What did it give you?” – “Well, such a spiritual, moral development, something else, something else. It’s even hard for me to consider this a sin.” “That's why you don’t go to the church.” The only thing that separates us from God is sin. Sin separates us from God. And when a person formally mentioned his sin in Confession - well, some, I mentioned one for example, maybe the other one, but he didn’t repent of it heartily with the contrition of the heart, he didn’t reject it internally, he kept the form of repentance, but there was no repentance, - this led him inevitably to cooling. Therefore, you just need to find out what sin lies at the basis of this cooling, or maybe it is a mortal sin, or maybe it is like when I said that football is more interesting than the Liturgy, and begin to repent of this sin, struggle, and force yourself to do the opposite.

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