[Salvation]

**if you don’t need to confess, then you don’t need the Eucharist! **

Right on! Bless you!

[kosta50]

Thank you both. I believe the problem is that in the Latin liturgy there is a standard public confession (I don't know the name but it's when people, or at least some of them, pound their chest with their fist), which I believe many take as being equivalent to a confession.

In the Eastern Churches there is also one, equally contrite (and somewhat longer), recited by those who are about to take the Holy Communion, and who are properly prepared (fasted since midnight, prayed, confessed, and received absolution), but never in place of personal confession to the priest.

I must say, regretfully, that in some American Orthodox churches the practice of "mass communion" has crept into the praxis, where whole pews empty out to receive, and when it's obvious that all these people could not have confessed the night before, but are "riding" their last confession over and over, even though the priest always reminds that only (Eastern) Orthodox Christians who have properly prepared may approach the Cup.