worthy of eternal life. In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Chaldean Catholic Church Before their recent reform of their Liturgy, Chaldean Catholics used the form of absolution from the Roman Ritual, but translated into Syriac. Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church has always believed that the Church has power to forgive sin from Christ. This is made clear by the formulæ of absolution in vogue among all branches within Eastern Orthodoxy, and also since the time of the Protestant Reformation in the decrees of the Synod of Constantinople in 1638, the Synod of Jassy in 1642, and the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672. The Orthodox also reaffirmed the sacrament in response to the heresy of Patriarch Cyril Lucaris III of Constantinople. In the Synod of Jerusalem the Orthodox Bishops reaffirmed its belief in Seven Sacraments, among them Penance, which Jesus Christ is believed to have established when he said to the Apostles on the evening of His Resurrection: "Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them, and whose sins you shall retain they are retained." Greek The service in the Byzantine Church is often attributed to Patriarch of Constantinople, John the Faster (AD 582–595). However, it dates rather from the 11th century. The absolution, as in the present Greek Euchologion, uses the deprecative form to stress that it is God who primarily forgives through the priest. After questioning the penitent in line with the tradition of the Kanonaria lists in front of an iconostasis, the priest prays, My spiritual child, N., who have confessed to my humble person, I, humble and a sinner, have not power on earth to forgive sins, but God alone; but through that divinely spoken word which came to the Apostles after the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, saying, Whosesoever sins you forgive are forgiven, and whosesoever sins you retain are retained, we are emboldened to say: Whatsoever you have said to my humble person, and whatsoever you have failed yo say, whether through ignorance or forgetfulness, whatever it may be, may God forgive you in this world and in that which is to come. The priest adds May God Who pardoned David through Nathan the Prophet when he confessed his sins, and Peter weeping bitterly for his denial, and the sinful woman weeping at His feet, and the publican and the