When it is said
A priest reads this prayer when he blesses a car, a bus or any other vehicle. The natural time is soon after it is bought.
After a reading of Psalm 91 the priest says the prayer and then sprinkles the car with holy water inside and out.
It is a priest’s prayer, though a driver might pray its words at home before a first drive to ask the same blessing.
Where it comes from
No author known
Where does it come from?
The prayer comes from the Russian Book of Needs, the book a priest uses for the services and blessings of daily life. Its author is not named. St Tikhon’s Monastery in Pennsylvania published an English translation in 1999, in the third volume of its own Book of Needs. There the blessing of vehicles stands beside the blessings of homes, fields, wells and animals.
Чин освящения колесницы, Azbyka; The Great Book of Needs, Volume III (St Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 1999)
An older blessing for trains
A book of Russian services printed in Berlin in 1898 has a different order, for blessing a railway and its carriages. Its prayer asks God to show the travellers the way of salvation, as He gave faith to the Ethiopian official who sat in his chariot reading the prophets (Acts 8:27-35).
Alexei Maltsev, Чины погребения и некоторые особенные и древние церковные службы (Berlin, 1898)
What the words mean
Why does it say “chariot”?
The Slavonic word in the prayer is kolesnitsa, which means a chariot. The Russian Church uses the same order for every kind of vehicle, from a car, a bus or a train to a tractor, a motorbike or a bicycle. St Tikhon’s English has the plain word “vehicle”.
The seraphim and the cherubim
The prayer opens on God Who sits upon the seraphim and rides upon the cherubim. Isaiah saw seraphim above the Lord’s throne (Isaiah 6:1-2), and a psalm pictures God riding on a cherub and soaring on the wind (Psalm 18:10).
What people get wrong
Does a blessed car keep you safe from accidents?
A blessing is no charm against accidents. A Russian Orthodox guide to the blessing warns that it is naive to think a blessing keeps a car safe by magic, without faith and a Christian life. It asks drivers to put away anger and haste and to keep the rules of the road. Prayer beads hung from the mirror as a lucky charm, it adds, are a superstition.
The Scripture in it
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted; and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him stood seraphim, each having six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.
He mounted a cherub and flew; He soared on the wings of the wind.
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Church Slavonic
Господи Боже наш, седяй на Серафимех и ездяй на Херувимех,
мудростию украсивый человека,
и благим Твоим промыслом вся ко благу направляяй,
ниспосли благословение Твое на колесницу сию и Ангела Твоего к ней пристави,
да шествующии в ней им храними и наставляеми,
в мире и благополучии путь свой совершивше,
Тебе славу и благодарение возсылают, хваляще Отца, и Сына,
и Святаго Духа. Аминь.