Is it a sin not to go to church in connection with exams?translated

Reader question:

Hello! I am 16 years old. I was only baptized in April and from that moment on I slowly became a church member. Somewhere in May I started going to church every Sunday. Now I am entering the 11th grade and I understand that I will be studying hard for exams and I don’t think that I will have the strength to go to church as often as before. I understand that I can force myself to go through the “I can’t”, but I think that during the service I will only think about how to quickly go home and go to bed. Tell me, please, what to do in such a situation?

Maria

Priest's answer:

Priest Victor NIKISHOV

Hello!

Congratulations on finding the Lord in your heart and Baptism into the Orthodox faith! Until recently, I was still a student, so I understand you perfectly in relation to careful preparation for exams.

A systematic approach and clear planning of workload and time are very important in studying. Chaotically learning everything all year long is useless, because your memory will just be a mess of knowledge that will be difficult to retrieve at the right time. Therefore, I recommend that you develop a study plan for yourself with a clear time limit for mastering the material (which should also be clearly structured and...