Shubkono: The Door We Must Pass Through
On the Service of Reconciliation and why forgiveness is the first step of the Great Lent
Every year, on the first Monday of the Great Lent, the Indian Orthodox Church does something remarkable. Before a single day of fasting has been completed, before the long weeks of prayer and abstinence have even begun, the Church gathers her children together and asks them to do the hardest thing of all: to forgive one another.
This is the Shubkono — the Service of Reconciliation. The word itself, drawn from the Syriac, means “reconciliation” or “forgiveness.” It is conducted after the third-hour prayers on the first day of the Great Lent, and it stands, quite literally, at the threshold of the fast. You cannot walk through the door of Lent without first passing through the door of forgiveness. The Church, in her ancient wisdom, will not let you.
And there is a reason for that.
Standing Before the Gates of Eden
The Shubkono opens with the great Psalm of Repentance — Psalm 51 — the cry of King David after his fall. Before any hymn is sung, before any prayer of reconciliation is offered, the Church places on our lips the oldest and most honest confession in Scripture:
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew Your steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from Your presence and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.”
Psalm 51
And then, the sacrifice God truly desires:
“The sacrifice of God is a humble spirit; a heart that is contrite God will not despise.”
Psalm 51
Not burnt offerings. Not the outward observance of the fast. A contrite heart. This is the offering the Church asks us to bring as we stand at the threshold of Lent.
From this place of honest brokenness, the Eniyono rises — a hymn of raw supplication, each verse returning to the same refrain:
“O Lord, Merciful One, I sinned against You. Hear my petition — O Lord, have mercy upon us all!”
Eniyono of the Service of Shubkono
And then this piercing question, the voice of a soul that knows it has nowhere else to turn:
“O Lord, where shall we knock if not at Your door, Compassionate One? O Lord, have mercy upon us all!”
Eniyono of the Service of Shubkono
Where shall we knock if not at Your door? This is not a rhetorical question. It is the confession of every person who has tried to find peace on their own terms and failed. The hymn does not begin with confidence. It begins with need. And that is precisely the point.
Christ Who is Love
At the heart of the Shubkono lies the Sedro — one of the most beautiful priestly prayers in our liturgical tradition. In it, the priest addresses Christ not primarily as judge or king, but as love itself:
“O Christ our God, the eternal Tranquility of creation and the true peace of the uttermost parts of the world; Who is love, and is called love, and delights in this title more than all other titles.”
Sedro of the Service of Shubkono
Think about that for a moment. Of all the titles that belong to the Son of God — Creator, Redeemer, King, Judge — the one He delights in more than all others is Love. And it is from this love that the entire economy of salvation unfolds. The Sedro traces the thread of peace through the whole story of redemption: the Archangel’s greeting of peace to the Virgin Mary, the heavenly hosts proclaiming peace at the Nativity, Christ entering the Upper Room with the words of peace after the Resurrection, and finally His parting commandment to the disciples:
“My peace I leave with you, not as the world gives, do I give it to you. This is my commandment, that you should love one another, just as I have loved you.”
Sedro of the Service of Shubkono (CF. John 14:27; 15:12)
And from this foundation, the Sedro becomes a cascade of petitions — each one beginning with the words “By Your peace” or “In tranquillity” — asking that this love would penetrate every corner of the Church’s life: her shepherds and their flocks, her priests and their offerings, her feasts and her congregations, and above all, the wrathful and the divided among her children. “In peace, reconcile the wrathful. In tranquillity, unite those who are divided. In peace, fill bitter souls with Your joy.”
Why Forgiveness Comes First
It is no accident that the Church places the Shubkono at the very start of the fast, not at the end. Forgiveness is not the reward of Lent. It is the precondition. We cannot fast with a heart full of resentment. We cannot pray with bitterness on your lips. We cannot seek God’s mercy while withholding our own.
The hymns of the service say this with a bluntness that is hard to dodge. One of the Qolo hymns delivers a warning that should stop every one of us in our tracks:
“Let us love one another; love completes the commandments. There are those who fast from bread and yet are filled with hatred, like those who fast from wine and kill their brethren secretly.”
Qolo of the Service of Shubkono
Those who fast from bread and yet are filled with hatred. It is possible, the Church is telling us, to keep every rule of the fast — to abstain from food, to attend every service, to observe every rubric — and yet to miss the entire point. If the heart remains unreconciled, the fast is empty. It is a body without a soul.
Our Lord Himself taught this in the Gospel reading appointed for the Shubkono — the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant from Matthew 18 — where a man who was forgiven an enormous debt refused to forgive a fellow servant who owed him very little. And the Qolo hymn draws the lesson plainly:
“Christ taught us to forgive seven times seventy; if your brother offends you, forgive him his fault. Remember that you also have sinned and are in need of His forgiveness. Go, therefore, and with your brother be reconciled, that you may cry together: Glory to You, Lord!”
Qolo of the Service of Shubkono
Remember that you also have sinned. This is what makes reconciliation possible. Not that the other person deserves it, but that we ourselves stand in desperate need of mercy. And if God does not withhold it from us, how can we withhold it from one another?
The Bo’utho of Mor Jacob of Sarug presses this even further, addressing the wrathful directly and stripping away the pride that keeps us from seeking peace:
“O wrathful ones, reconcile with one another, for the Lord has reconciled with us by His love. Let no one say, ‘My brother has sinned against me; it is an insult to be reconciled with him.’”
Bo’utho of Mor Jacob, from the Service of Shubkono
It is an insult to be reconciled with him. How many of us have thought exactly this? And yet the hymn names it for what it is — pride, dressed up as dignity. Mor Jacob goes on:
“Love each other as the members of the body, for One is the Lord, Christ, the head of the body. One who has hate against his neighbour hates the Lord; let him love his brother lest he enter judgment.”
Bo’utho of Mor Jacob, from the Service of Shubkono
What Happens in the Shubkono
One of the most striking moments of the service is when the celebrant — the priest or bishop — himself asks forgiveness from the congregation. The shepherd bows before the flock. Three times he prostrates, and each time the words grow more urgent.
The first time, he says:
“My brethren and beloved ones, forgive me for the sake of Christ. I have sinned against you. In spiritual concord and paternal love, as a watchful pastor, I exhort you and prostrate myself before you.”
The Priest’s Prostration, Service of Shubkono
The second time:
“I pray and beseech your true love, O brethren and beloved ones, let us be reconciled to one another that God may be reconciled to us.”
The Priest’s Prostration, Service of Shubkono
And the third time, with the full weight of a heart laid bare:
“Come, my beloved brethren, let us be reconciled to one another and pardon the transgressions and faults that we all have committed against one another, that God may be reconciled to us and forgive us our debts and sins, as He said: For if you forgive the debts and faults of one another, you will also be forgiven.”
The Priest’s Prostration, Service of Shubkono
Each time, the people prostrate in return and respond: “Barekmor. We ask forgiveness.” There is no one in the Church who stands above the need for reconciliation — not the priest, not the bishop, not anyone.
After the Nicene Creed, the faithful make forty prostrations — a number that echoes the forty days of the fast, the forty days of Christ in the wilderness, the forty years of Israel in the desert. Each prostration is an act of humility, a bodily confession that we are not yet what we are called to become.
And then comes the kiss of peace. The faithful turn to one another — priests, deacons, and all the people present — and they offer the peace of Christ. Not because the wounds have disappeared. Not because everything has been resolved. But because the Church teaches us that forgiveness is a choice before it is a feeling. It is an act of the will, empowered by grace, long before it becomes an ease of the heart.
Not Alone in the Arena
There is one more thing the Shubkono teaches us, and perhaps it is the most important of all: we do not fast alone.
Lent can sometimes feel like a private battle — my fast, my discipline, my spiritual struggle. But the Church, by beginning with an act of communal forgiveness, reminds us that the journey toward Qymtho – the Feast of Resurrection, is a journey we make together. We are not isolated athletes in our own corners of the ring. We are the Body of Christ, and we enter the arena as one.
The Qolo hymn on fasting makes this communal call with urgency:
“Let us be diligent in fasting, my brethren. Those who fast gain victory and perfection in Christ. With it they fight against Satan; by it Moses shone on Mount Sinai; by it Elijah was lifted up to heaven; by it the just triumphed and the martyrs were crowned.”
Qolo of the Service of Shubkono
And the Etro — the priestly prayer that follows — gathers all of this together into a single, luminous petition:
“Make, O Lord, our hearts habitations of tranquility and our minds havens of peace. Implant in our souls the deeds of true love for You and for one another. Impress in us Your love with unity, concord, and piety, so that with modesty we may give peace to one another and receive it with sincerity.”
Etro of the Service of Shubkono
That we may give peace to one another and receive it with sincerity. Not merely offer it as a ritual gesture, but give it — truly — and receive it — sincerely. This is what the Church asks of us as we cross the threshold of Lent.
A Personal Reflection
I will confess something. For many years, I attended the Shubkono without fully grasping what was happening. I knelt when others knelt. I exchanged the peace when the moment came. But the words of the service passed over me like water. It was only later, as I began to understand the theology of the Church more deeply, that the Shubkono became what it was always meant to be: the most honest moment of the Church year.
Because forgiveness is hard. We carry grudges we have nursed for years. We harbour resentments so familiar they feel like part of who we are. And the Shubkono asks us to lay all of that down — not later, not gradually, but now, today, on the very first day — and to walk into Lent with open hands and a willing heart.
Perhaps the second Bo’utho of Mor Jacob of Sarug, sung later in the service, captures best the spirit with which we should enter this season:
“Lord, I crave for Your forgiveness to approach me; grant me tears to beg while there is time to repent. I thirst for Your mercies, I cannot live without — O Sea of Mercies, sprinkle me with Your kindness.”
Bo’utho of Mor Jacob of Sarug, from the Service of Shubkono
While there is time to repent. The Shubkono reminds us that this time is a gift. The fast is a gift. The chance to turn back, to be reconciled, to begin again — all of it is grace.
We may not succeed perfectly. We almost certainly will not. But the Church does not ask for perfection. She asks for a beginning. She asks us to stand at the threshold, to acknowledge our need, and to take the first step back toward the God who is love, and is called love, and delights in this title more than all other titles.
May this Lent begin, for each of us, with that step.
“May the voice of our prayer be a key to the doors of heaven, and may the archangels in their ranks proclaim: How sweet is the voice of those upon the earth, that God answers them!”
Qolo of the Service of Shubkono
