Prayer of St. Ephraim

The Orthodox pray the Prayer of St. Ephraim during Great Lent is normally added to either morning or evening prayers. The prayer is punctuated with prostrations.

Lenten Prayer of St. Ephraim

O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.

prostrate

But give rather the spirit of soberness, humility, patience, and love to Your servant.

prostrate

Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for You are blessed, unto ages of ages.

prostrate

Glory to You, O Christ our God and our Hope, glory to You.

sign the cross and bow

More Orthodox Prayers

Blog

Take Up Your Cross: Giving Without Calculation

Daniel McInnes

September 20, 2026 10:00 AM

On the Sunday after the Elevation of the Cross, Daniel McInnes asks what it actually means to take up your cross and follow Christ. Our whole life — not just the Sunday part of it — is the cross we are given to bear, and bearing it well means giving to the people around us without calculating the cost or the return. Drawing on his work as a mathematician and on his days at the Defence Academy, he shows how the modern instinct to optimise everything fails in the places that matter most, and how even involuntary suffering trains us to give with our whole heart.

The Tree of Life: Why We Glory in the Cross

Fr. Nicholas Frazer

September 13, 2026 10:00 AM

Ahead of the feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross, Fr. Nicholas Frazer preaches on why the cross stands at the very centre of the Orthodox faith. Drawing on Christ's words to Nicodemus and on Ss. John Chrysostom, Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria, he traces the pattern of salvation history: death came through a tree in paradise, and life comes through the tree of the cross. The cross is shown as the revelation of God's love, the throne of the King and the defeat of death — and each of us is called to take it up daily in forgiveness, humility and repentance.

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