Prayer in Eastern Orthodoxy

Eastern and Oriental Orthodox practice and liturgical prayer.

Orthodox Christians describe prayer as standing before God, and the standing is often literal. The center of the tradition's prayer life is the Divine Liturgy, the eucharistic service celebrated every Sunday and on feasts, in which bread and wine are offered and consecrated and the faithful receive communion. Worship engages the whole body: worshippers stand for long stretches, make the sign of the cross, light candles, kiss icons, and breathe incense while choirs or chanters sing nearly every word of the service. Public liturgy is not an add-on to private devotion; it is the pattern that private devotion imitates. Personal prayer follows a rule, a set sequence of morning and evening prayers drawn from the church's prayer books, often said before icons at a home prayer corner. Alongside the fixed rule stands the Jesus Prayer, a short petition that calls on Jesus Christ by name and asks his mercy. Repeated slowly, sometimes counted on a knotted prayer rope, it anchors hesychasm, the contemplative tradition of inner stillness developed by monks and defended in the fourteenth century by Gregory Palamas. Orthodox prayer is addressed to God alone, while the Theotokos and the saints are asked to intercede, the way one asks a friend to pray. Prayer is also bound to time and to the sacraments, which Orthodox usually call the Holy Mysteries. Four fasting seasons and most Wednesdays and Fridays shape the year; confession, communion, anointing of the sick, and services for the departed mark the turning points of a life. This page describes the Eastern Orthodox family of churches, the Byzantine tradition rooted in Greece, Russia, the Middle East, and the Balkans. The Oriental Orthodox churches, among them the Coptic and Armenian, form a separate communion whose prayer life, though similar in feel, follows its own rites.

Forms of prayer

The rhythm

The week pivots on Sunday morning, when the Divine Liturgy is celebrated in every parish; Saturday evening Vespers or a vigil prepares for it. Wednesdays and Fridays are fast days through most of the year. Four seasons of fasting structure the calendar: Great Lent and Holy Week before Pascha, the Apostles' Fast in early summer, the Dormition Fast in the first half of August, and the forty-day Nativity Fast before Christmas. Pascha, the Orthodox Easter, is the summit: its services begin near midnight, moving from a darkened church into candlelight and a procession. Daily prayer at home frames each day with a morning and evening rule, and the devout add the Hours or the Jesus Prayer. Feast days, name days of patron saints, and memorial Saturdays fill out a year in which almost every date carries a commemoration.

At life’s moments

Awareness-level notes only: what a moment tends to involve here, not what to do at one.

• Health and healing: A person facing illness may ask the parish priest for prayers, be anointed at a Holy Unction service, or request a Paraklesis, the supplicatory canon sung for the living in sickness or distress. Many parishes keep ongoing prayer lists of the sick, remembered by name at the liturgy.
• Before surgery: Before an operation, Orthodox patients often ask a priest to hear confession and bring communion, and some request anointing. Families may place a small icon or cross with the patient. Orthodoxy sets no fixed clock hours of obligatory prayer, so timing flexes around the procedure.
• Serious illness: Holy Unction is the church's sacrament for serious sickness, asking healing of soul and body, and it is explicitly not reserved for the dying. A priest can hear confession and bring communion to a hospital bed. Fasting rules are relaxed or suspended for the ill.
• Anxiety and distress: Holy Unction is explicitly offered for the sick in mind as well as body, the Paraklesis is sung in times of discouragement, and confession with a trusted priest or spiritual father is a normal support. Attitudes toward clinical treatment vary by community and generation, so care teams do well to ask rather than assume.
• Dying and the end of life: When death approaches, Orthodox families usually want a priest called in time for the person to confess and receive communion while still conscious. A rite also exists for the parting of the soul. After death the priest serves the brief Trisagion memorial, the first of a sequence that continues through the funeral and beyond.
• Funerals and burial: Orthodox funerals are normally held in church, often with the casket open. A Trisagion service may precede the funeral at the visitation. Burial is the norm: most jurisdictions do not grant an Orthodox funeral where cremation was freely chosen, though pastoral exceptions exist. Funeral directors should confirm details with the serving priest.
• Grief and mourning: Mourning is paced by the memorial calendar: services near the third, ninth, and fortieth days, then at the year, with forty days often treated as the formal mourning period. Koliva, boiled wheat with honey, is shared at memorials in many communities. Saturdays of Souls gather collective remembrance several times a year.
• Birth and new life: Tradition surrounds a newborn with staged prayers: prayers on the day of birth, naming prayers on the eighth day, and the churching of mother and child around the fortieth day, followed by baptism and chrismation, after which even infants receive communion. Families vary in how fully they keep this sequence.
• Marriage: An Orthodox wedding joins two rites: a betrothal with rings and a crowning, in which crowns are placed on or held over the couple, followed by a shared cup of wine and a procession around a central table. Requirements differ among jurisdictions, so interchurch couples usually talk with the priest early.

For chaplains, nurses and funeral directors

Sacramental ministry requires an Orthodox priest; a chaplain of another tradition can offer presence and comfort but should not attempt Orthodox rites. Ask early which jurisdiction the family belongs to (Greek, Antiochian, Russian, Serbian, Romanian, OCA, and others) and whether their own parish priest should be called; the jurisdictions are in communion, so in an emergency any canonical Orthodox priest can come. Patients may keep icons, a cross, or a knotted prayer rope at the bedside; keep these with the patient and hand them to family rather than discarding them. A priest may bring communion to the sick; families sometimes prefer that visit before the patient eats, though fasting customs always yield to medical need, so coordinate timing with the priest. At death, families often want the priest present beforehand, not only after. Funeral directors should expect a church funeral, frequently with an open casket, a possible Trisagion service at the visitation, burial rather than cremation in most cases, and memorials around the fortieth day and first anniversary. Holy Week and fasting seasons affect scheduling, and some families keep the older calendar, with Christmas falling on January 7.

Common misreadings

Variation within the tradition

Eastern Orthodoxy is a communion of self-governing churches: Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Russia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, and others, plus diaspora bodies such as the Orthodox Church in America. Doctrine and the shape of services are shared; language, music, and custom are not. Greek parishes chant in Byzantine tones, Slavic parishes sing choral settings, and a prayer rope is a komboskini in one and chotki in the other. The calendar divides practice visibly: churches on the revised calendar keep Christmas on December 25, while those on the older reckoning keep it on January 7, though nearly all celebrate Pascha together. Fasting strictness, head covering in church, frequency of confession, and how often laypeople receive communion all vary by jurisdiction, parish, and household, usually worked out with a priest or spiritual father. Outsiders should ask which tradition a family follows rather than assume.

Terms worth knowing

• Theotokos: The principal Orthodox title of Mary, a Greek term usually rendered God-bearer or Mother of God. Many supplicatory services, including the Paraklesis, ask her intercession.
• Divine Liturgy: The eucharistic service of the Orthodox Church, celebrated on Sundays and feasts, in which bread and wine are consecrated and distributed as communion.
• Pascha: The Orthodox name for Easter, the year's central feast, reckoned by a calculation that keeps nearly all Orthodox churches celebrating on the same date.
• Hesychasm: A contemplative tradition of inner stillness centered on the Jesus Prayer, developed among monks and affirmed by fourteenth-century councils after Gregory Palamas defended it.
• Prayer rope (komboskini, chotki): A knotted cord, commonly of 33, 50, or 100 knots, used to count repetitions of the Jesus Prayer; the Greek name is komboskini, the Russian chotki.
• Iconostasis: The icon-bearing screen that separates the sanctuary from the nave in an Orthodox church, pierced by doors used by clergy during services.
• Holy Mysteries: The Orthodox term for the sacraments, including baptism, chrismation, communion, confession, marriage, ordination, and unction; the phrase is also used for communion itself.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

The claims on this page rest on the following. Where practice varies, the variation is stated rather than resolved.

• Holy Unction (The Orthodox Faith, vol. II: Worship), Thomas Hopko, Orthodox Church in America. Confirms that unction is a healing sacrament for the physically and mentally sick, not last rites, ideally served by seven priests.
• Fasting and Fast-Free Seasons of the Church, Orthodox Church in America. Lists the fasting seasons and weekly Wednesday and Friday fasts, and states that fasting is relaxed for the sick and elderly.
• Divine Liturgy, OrthodoxWiki. Backs the two-part structure of the liturgy and the uses of the Chrysostom, Basil, and Presanctified Gifts forms.
• The Calendar of the Orthodox Church, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. Explains the Julian and revised Julian calendars, the December 25 and January 7 Christmas split, and the shared date of Pascha.
• Trisagion, Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation, Atlanta. Confirms the Trisagion memorial service and its customary timings: at death, at the funeral, on the third, ninth, and fortieth days, and annually.
• Can Orthodox Christians Be Cremated?, Saint John the Evangelist Orthodox Church. States the normative preference for burial, the withholding of funeral rites where cremation is freely chosen, and allowance for extenuating circumstances.
• The Service of the Small Paraklesis to the Most Holy Theotokos, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. Backs the description of the Paraklesis as supplication for the living in sickness, danger, and discouragement.
• The Orthodox Prayer Rope (Komboskini), Saint George Greek Orthodox Cathedral, Greenville. Describes the knotted prayer rope, its common lengths, and its use with the Jesus Prayer.
• Churching, OrthodoxWiki. Backs the sequence of birth prayers: naming on the eighth day and the churching of mother and child around the fortieth day, before baptism.
• The Orthodox Church, Timothy (Kallistos) Ware (1963; new edition 1993). Standard scholarly introduction; general backing for hesychasm and Gregory Palamas, icon veneration and the 787 council, the Chalcedonian split with the Oriental Orthodox, the crowning rite of marriage, and infant communion.