Prayer · Eastern Orthodox

O God of Spirits: Orthodox Prayer for the Departed

The Orthodox prayer for the departed from the Requiem Office, with its closing exclamation, in Isabel Hapgood's 1906 Service Book translation.

O God of spirits, and of all flesh, who hast trampled down Death, and overthrown the Devil, and given life unto thy world: Do thou, the same Lord, give rest to the soul of thy departed servant, N. (servants, NN.), in a place of brightness, a place of verdure, a place of repose, whence all sickness, sorrow and sighing have fled away. Pardon every transgression which he (she) hath (they have) committed, whether by word, or deed, or thought. For thou art a good God, and lovest mankind; because there is no man who liveth and sinneth not; for thou only art without sin, and thy righteousness is to all eternity, and thy word is true. Exclamation. Priest. For thou art the Resurrection, and the Life, and the Repose of thy departed servant, N. (servants, NN.), O Christ our God, and unto thee we ascribe glory, together with thy Father who is from everlasting, and thine all-holy, and good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto ages of ages. Choir. Amen.

Editorial reflection

In the Requiem Office for the Dead (the Panikhidi, as Hapgood spells it), the priest says this prayer after the litany for the departed and again near the end of the service, and the deacon's closing proclamation asks God to make the person's "memory to be eternal". It asks rest for the one who has died and pardon for every sin, because "there is no man who liveth and sinneth not". Say the person's name at N.; the words in parentheses are for a woman or for several people.

Text: Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic (Greco-Russian) Church, translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1906), The Requiem Office for the Dead, pp. 439–440. Source page: archive.org · O God of Spirits: Orthodox Prayer for the Departed ↗.