The Passions

What is penance for sexual sin in the Orthodox Church?

Men especially need to know there is a discipline attached to committing the sin, he says. Following the church fathers, one who defiles the temple of the Holy Spirit is typically kept from Holy Communion for a period — sometimes two weeks, with forty days as the norm — or given extra prostrations or fasting. He explains it with St Joseph the Hesychast's image of driving a nail out with a nail: the penance waiting on the other side of a fall is what dislodges the sin sunk into the person.