Is it necessary to repent before God in our private rooms, and then again in the presence of the Father of Confession?

The goal of confessing our sins is to encounter God, the Physician of our souls. Whoever does not feel his weakness or sins, will never feel the need for the heavenly Physician and will not therefore experience God’s love. Many times, we consider ourselves righteous, since we do not commit any dangerous sins that hurt others. A true believer, however, does not differentiate between big sins and trivial sins, since what truly concerns him is to be the icon of Christ, the Holy One’s ambassador, and an unblemished steward of heaven.

St. Basil the Great says, “it seems necessary that sins be confessed to those entrusted with the stewardship of the Mysteries of God (cf. 1 Cor. 4:1). For thus also those who repented of old are found to have confessed their sins before the saints. For it is written in the gospel that they confessed their sins to John the Baptist (cf. Matt. 3:6; Mark 1:5) and in the Acts of the Apostles, to the apostles, by whom they were also baptized (cf. Acts 2:37).”¹⁴⁴⁴

He also says, “On the other hand, where sin is concerned, be your own accuser (Prov. 18:17), and do not wait for others to make the accusation. Thus, you will be like a just man who accuses himself in the first speech made in court, or like Job who was not deterred by the crowd of people in the city from declaring his personal guilt before all (Job 31:34).”¹⁴⁴⁵