About prayer How to pray for those about whom it is not known whether they are alive? "You will not be mistaken if you pray as for the living, because with God everyone is alive. Everyone except heretics and apostates. These are the dead" (Elder Nektarios of Optina) [18]. Are laypeople allowed to read prayers from the Trebnik for clergy?

Prayers from the Trebnik are allowed to be read by laypeople, except for priests and deacons. For example, there are such remote places where there is no church; there the faithful themselves perform an incomplete funeral service, i.e. they sing stichera, read the canon, the Epistles, but do not read the Gospel, the prayer of absolution, do not say the exclamations and litanies of the priest and deacon. They even perform services in this way; For example, they serve not Mass, but Obednitsa.

Is it possible to eat at night after twelve o'clock for those who work the night shift? Do they need to read prayers "for the coming sleep"? If necessary, you can eat, and pray well, at least briefly. Prayer will never hurt, and it will also save you from temptations. After Communion, I was reading prayers of thanksgiving at home, when suddenly a neighbor came in, a conversation began, and I told her that I had just been to church, had taken Communion, and now I was reading prayers of thanksgiving, and immediately after she left, my soul felt unpleasant, as if grace had left me. Why could this happen?

This happened because you had to keep your good deed, your prayer secret, but you discovered it, and thereby destroyed it. Because, as it were, grace departed and a sorrowful, unpleasant feeling took over. The enemy of salvation often inspires from the church to go to someone, or sends a person with idle talk, in order to take away grace from the soul after attending church, and especially when a person takes communion.

If acquaintances come to me unexpectedly during prayer, should I leave the prayers or ask them to wait until I pray? One must abandon prayer (for love is higher than prayer), accept acquaintances, and having dismissed them, finish one's prayer. Is it good if the prayer rule is longer: in addition to the usual morning and evening prayers, there are akathists, canons?

The most important thing in the fulfillment of the prayer rule is its constant daily observance. If necessary, it is reduced. You must have such a rule that it does not exceed your strength and so that your conscience does not reproach you for laziness. Is it possible to imagine the Lord and the saints in prayer? Is it possible to arouse in oneself a desire to see angels or feel the suffering of Jesus Christ?

Many Holy Fathers forbid imagining the Lord, in particular St. Symeon the New Theologian and St. Theophan the Recluse. St. Symeon the New Theologian speaks of three forms of prayer, and prayer with imagination is not resolved as a prayer of delusion[19]. But sometimes, from the invasion of blasphemous thoughts, you cannot look at the icon! How, then, should we pray?

"In order to make your thoughts less cold, you can only occasionally glance at the icons," says St. But we should know that icons are only for external eyes, and therefore, when we stand at prayer, we must remember that we stand before God. An icon should not be imagined in the mind under any circumstances"[20].

Is it possible to pray while walking or lying in bed? Is it necessary to stand while reading the Gospel when praying at home, and is it possible to read the Gospel on public transport? When you do not perform the prayer rule, then you can pray in any position, but when you do the rule, then it is sinful to lean on and sit unnecessarily. If you can, it is better to read the Holy Scriptures while standing.

The Gospel, and if you are tired or infirm, then sitting, with reverence. In public transport, it is better to read the Psalter. Do spiritually wise people advise to engage in the Jesus Prayer on their own, and if so, to what extent? The Jesus Prayer is very useful and salvific to be practiced orally, ordinarily, but the Prayer of the Heart can be practiced only under the guidance of experienced elders and with St. John.

books about the Jesus Prayer, and most importantly – not to seek anything through it, except for mercy. But what use can there be from the Jesus Prayer if I pronounce it only with my lips, not understanding what I am saying, my mind is still running to the side? "You do not understand," said the Optina Elder Macarius, "but the demons understand and tremble.

Calm down and continue praying as much as you can"[21]. Why does it happen that there seems to be no strength at all to read the prescribed prayer rule, but when you start reading, as if the strength came from somewhere? "Do not believe your flesh, which threatens you with inadequacy during prayer: it lies. If you begin to pray, you will see that the flesh will become your obedient slave. Prayer will revive it too.

Always remember that the flesh is a liar" (St. John of Kronstadt) [22]. What is the best way to pray, alone or in two, three? St. John of Kronstadt said: "The Lord loves and listens to prayers more than we pray when we pray not alone and not only for ourselves and not for ourselves alone, but together, from all and for all"[23].

What to do on a feast day if you cannot go to church and cannot read spiritual books? At home, at least lying down, pray, since God will require inner prayer even from a seriously ill person. It is also good to study God: about the life of the Savior on earth, about the Last Judgment, about the Resurrection of the dead, about eternal life, bliss and eternal torment, about death and toll-houses. Elder of Athos Fr.