Orthodox Christian Prayer Book Hardcover – January 1, 2016

Absolutely lovely. I’m enjoying the prayers. It came wrapped in plastic and not bent.

This book made me gasp. It is truly a beautiful holy text.The size is perfect for taking with you everywhere. The binding is just wonderful. Too many times have I come across poor binding in publications for Eastern Christians. It even has end papers inside the covers. Who does that anymore?! A very welcome, long-forgotten aspect of book binding reappearing in this volume.The layout and graphic design is amazing as well. No copy-pasted, pixelated line drawings here. There are many richly colored icons from Mt. Athos (a couple of Pantokrator, Theotokos depictions, St. John the Forerunner, the Prodigal Son come to mind) and original line art interwoven throughout the text. The wonderful aspect for me was that the images were not printed on a glossy photo paper like most books but a sturdy, cream paper. The color scheme is as what would be expected for any Orthodox prayer book: red and black with red framing around the prayers passed to us by our Holy Fathers. The typography is very well done and in excellent taste making good use of titles, negative space, and stylized text to distinguish between headings, prayer content, and rubrics/liturgical instructions.The prayers are wonderfully chosen and especially put together with a lay person in mind. For example, after the introductory prayers of the morning prayer the book gives you the option to simply end the morning prayers there, or to continue on as needed. This is perfect for people living in the world who struggle to split their time between our earthly obligations (like getting to work on time!) and the duty to worship God. I ordered this book because it's a small volume, but it has some major hours (morning prayer which uses the hexapsalm and doxology, and vespers) with minor hours (3rd, 6th, 9th) along with akathists. I don't know of another Orthodox prayer book that contains all of these things in one place, which is an instant win for me since I actually usually only have time and energy to pray during the day rather than night or evening, which most Orthodox prayer books for lay people seem to be emphasizing.I would have liked to have the text of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom so I can use it as a typica (I don't live near any Eastern churches) which is sadly missing, and the typica itself is missing as well, but I'll live. The rest of the content and its portability and quality make up for that for me.Buy this for yourself or as a gift for anyone. It's well worth the price.

Every Orthodox Christian should have this prayer book. The prayers are beautiful and you know you cannot go wrong as they were written by the saints.

The book arrived today. What I like the most is I can put this book in my front shirt pocket or rear pocket and take it anywhere, to the woods to sit under a tree enjoying the sounds of the birds and the wind rustling through the trees and then reading something from this cute book.I am glad I purchased my iPhone 15 Pro Max yesterday and a nice feature is the Action Button which I have the magnifier connected because this 72 year old is surely going to need it to read the very very small print in this Orthodox Prayer Book.The one thing I dislike is ,,it is made in the Country of our enemy and we will soon be at War with. Communist China. People need to wake up and stop putting money in their hands because it does not go to the People but goes to their Military Buildup to take us out, the USA. They seek to dominate the World and are atheists.Otherwise it's a keeper for me.

Very detailed and accurate information. An extremely powerful book that I recommend for all Christians.

It is nice to have a prayer book that uses modern English (You/Your) instead of traditional English (Thee/Thy). There are a few reasons why I am giving this book 4 instead of 5 stars. First, there are no General Prayers for the Living. Instead, there are several lengthy specific prayers for intercession included within the Occasional Prayers. Interestingly, there is a General Prayer for the Dead on p. 202. Secondly, the Morning Prayers are very brief and do not include prayers found in other prayer books. One may, however, supplement the Morning Prayers with the Six Psalms & Small Doxology and/or other morning prayers and intercessions included in the book's Occasional Prayers. Thirdly, there are no Evening Prayers. Vespers and Small Compline are provided instead for use as evening prayers. I still recommend this book highly, though. I love that it includes full versions of the Lesser Hours in contemporary English as well as a few Canons and Akathists. The section titled "A Safeguard for the Soul: Brief Meditations for Each Day of the Month" by St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain provides good food for though and encourages repentance. One other critic on Amazon says that the book contains too many self-deprecating prayers, but I guess I personally need more reminders of what how totally depraved I am and how much I need God to help me change. This book will make a nice addition to your library.

I had been experimenting with prayers for a while and found an appreciation for including the psalter in my prayers. Then, I learned about the hours of prayer and wanted a prayer book that acted more like a private service book. This is it. Perfect! Would love it more if it included the midnight office, but I find myself praying the Salutations if I'm up late anyway. I highly, highly recommend it!

I read special prayers each morning and it helps to start my day