The Church’s prayer for the departed
Kneeling prayer of Pentecost for the departed
Hear us, the lowly and wretched, as we pray to You,and give rest to the souls of Your servantswho have fallen asleep before us,in a place of light, a place of green pasture,a place of refreshment,where all pain, sorrow and sighing have fled away.
Give their spirits a place in the dwellings of the righteous,and count them worthy of peace and relief.
For the dead will not praise You, O Lord,nor are those in hades free to give You thanks;but we, the living, bless You and pray to You,and bring You prayers and sacrificesthat ask Your mercy for their souls.
Traditional wording, 1906
Hear us, Thy humble ones, who make our supplications unto Thee,and give rest to the souls of Thy servants who have fallen asleep,in a place of light, a place of verdure, a place of refreshmentwhence all sickness, sorrow and sighing have fled away:
And speedily establish Thou their souls in the mansions of the Just;and graciously vouchsafe unto them peace and pardon;
for the dead shall not praise Thee,neither shall they who are in Hell make bold to offer unto Thee confession.But we who are living will bless Thee, and will pray,and offer unto Thee propitiatory prayers and sacrifices for their souls.
Everyone kneels at Pentecost Vespers while the priest reads this prayer. Just before these lines it says that on this feast Christ accepts prayers even for those held in hades, the place of the dead, and gives us great hope of relief for them.
Plain English by Wiser Walk, from the Greek of the Pentecost service, with Isabel Hapgood’s 1906 English beside it. How the wording is made. Traditional wording: Isabel F. Hapgood, Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church, 1906.
Hapgood translated from the Church Slavonic books rather than the Greek. A few of her words here, such as “speedily” and “pardon”, have nothing matching them in the Greek.
