Orthodox prayers in an epidemic or a disaster

Prayers for when sickness spreads or disaster strikes, for the sick and those who care for them, and for every city and land in danger.

Picture: Joseph Anton Koch and Gottlieb Schick, Landscape with Noah’s Thank-Offering, 1803

4 prayers and 1 to the saints

When sickness spreads

Prayer in time of epidemic

Plain English only: no traditional English wording is given for this prayer

O Lord our God,You are rich in mercy,and in Your wise care You guide our life.Hear our prayer.Accept our repentance for our sins.Stop this new contagious disease, this new epidemic,as You ended the punishment of Your peoplein the days of King David.

You are the Physician of our souls and bodies.Give healing to those who have fallen ill,raising them quickly from their bed of pain,so that they may glorify You, the merciful Saviour.And keep those who are wellsafe from every illness.

By Your grace, O Lord,bless, strengthen and protectall who care for the sick,at home or in hospitals,with love for others and with self-sacrifice.

Take away all sickness and suffering from the people,and teach us to treasure life and healthas Your gifts.

Give us Your peace, O God,and fill our hearts with unshaken faith in Your protection,with hope in Your help,and with love for You and for our neighbour.

For it is Yours, our God,to have mercy on us and to save us,and to You we give glory,to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,now and always, and for ever and ever.Amen.

The head of the Romanian Orthodox Church sent this prayer to every diocese in March 2020. It asks God to end the epidemic, heal the sick, keep the well safe and bless everyone who cares for the sick.

Plain English by Wiser Walk, from the Romanian, as the Romanian Orthodox Church sent it out. How the wording is made.

Where it comes from, and the Romanian

When a plague spreads

Prayer in time of plague

Plain English only: no traditional English wording is given for this prayer

Master, Lord our God,You are a spring of compassion that never runs dry,a sea of love for mankind too deep to search,an endless depth of patience and goodness.

In the greatness of Your love for mankindYou bring wounds and plagues on the human racein every generation, for its good,so that our headlong rush toward sin, so hard to rein in,may be held back by fear of You as by a bridle,and may not run wild against the image of Godor do shameful harm to the nobility of the soul.

Stop, we pray, this sharp sword of deaththat is turned against our human natureand takes lives before their time,so that You do not leave us the fewest of all the nations,or hand us over to be scornedby our enemies, unseen and seen.

The cities stand empty,and the markets are gone.The holy feasts, the servicesand the gatherings to sing God’s hymnshave for the most part fallen silent.Fine and great houses stand desolate, as the Scripture says,and no one lives in them.Fear and trembling have come upon us,and the black darkness of this terrible deathhas covered us all.

Master, we have no timeto mourn our dead relatives as the custom is,for our own end is coming too.We look for others to mourn for us,and we are laid in a common grave.Even we who still live and are seenno longer think that we are alive.In fear of this terrible plaguewe hardly trust even ourselves.Each of us imaginesthat we carry the mark of death and the plague within us,and before we diewe die a bitter death from the fear of dying.

These are the wages of our wickedness.This is the fitting result of our evil and unclean deeds.These are the terrible gainsof our lust, our injustice and our broken oaths.This three-headed serpent has sunk its bitter teeth into usand brought this decay and this death upon us.Because of these things, as Scripture says,the wrath of God comes on the disobedient.

So none of us can lift up the eyes of the mind,or pray in purity,or draw down Your mercy,for each of us is bent low by the weight of conscienceas by an iron yoke.

But do not give us up for ever,for the sake of Your holy name,and do not break Your covenant,so that we wretched ones do not losethe time to repent and turn back.That is why, in Your love for mankind,You have brought this deadly plague upon us.

We know that we have often promised to repentand have often lied,and we have been sentenced to be cut downlike the fig tree that bore no fruit.Yet be patient with us still, and longer still,as a Gardener Who loves mankind.You do not desire the death of a sinner,but that the sinner turn back and live.You command us to forgive our brothers’ sinsseventy times seven.You can raise up children for Abrahamfrom hard and fruitless stones.

For to You alone, Master, Lover of mankind,all things are possible that are impossible for human beings.So may Your most holy name be glorified in us toofrom generation to generation,the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,now and always, and for ever and ever.Amen.

Show the whole prayer

This prayer from the Book of Needs mourns what a plague does to a city, from silent churches to the common grave. It confesses the plague as the wages of our sins and asks God, Who wants no sinner to die, to be patient with us still.

Plain English by Wiser Walk, from the Greek of the Great Euchologion (1862), read beside the Church Slavonic of the Great Book of Needs. How the wording is made.

Where it comes from, and the Church Slavonic

For every city and land in danger

Helper of the helpless

Remember, O God, those on trial,those in the mines, in exile and in bitter slavery,and all who are in any affliction, need or distress,and all who need Your great compassion.

Remember those who love us and those who hate us,and those who have asked us, unworthy as we are,to pray for them.

Remember all Your people, O Lord our God,and pour out Your rich mercy on them all,granting all their requests that lead to salvation.

And those we have not remembered,through not knowing, or forgetting,or the great number of names,remember them Yourself, O God.You know the age and the name of each one.You have known each one from their mother’s womb.

For You, O Lord, are the Helper of the helpless,the Hope of the hopeless,the Saviour of the storm-tossed,the Harbour of those at sea,the Physician of the sick.

Be all things to all people,You Who know each oneand what they ask for,where they live and what they need.

Deliver, O Lord, this city and land,and every city and land,from famine, plague, earthquake, flood and fire,from the sword, foreign invasionand civil war.

Traditional wording, 1906

Have in remembrance those who are under trial, and in the mines,and in exile, and in bitter slavery,and in all affliction, distress and tribulation.

Have in remembrance, O God, all those who invoke Thy great loving-kindness;those also who love us, and those who hate us,and those who have enjoined us, unworthy though we are, that we should pray for them;and all Thy people, O Lord our God:And upon them all pour out Thy rich mercy,granting unto all such of their petitions as are unto salvation.

And those whom we, through ignorance, or forgetfulness, or the multitude of names, have not remembered,do Thou Thyself call to mind, O God,Who knowest the age and the name of each,and knowest every man even from his mother’s womb.

For Thou, O Lord, art the Helper of the helpless,the Hope of the hopeless, the Saviour of the storm-tossed,the Haven of the voyager, the Healer of the sick.

Be Thyself all things unto all men,O Thou Who knowest every man, his petition, his abode, and his need.

Deliver, O Lord, this city, and every city and landfrom famine, plague, earthquake, flood, fire, sword,the invasion of enemies, and from civil war.

These lines from the Liturgy of St Basil call God the Helper of the helpless. They ask Him to deliver every city and land from famine, plague, earthquake, flood and fire.

Plain English by Wiser Walk, from the Greek, with Hapgood’s 1906 translation beside it. How the wording is made. Traditional wording: Isabel F. Hapgood, Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church, 1906.

Hapgood’s book, made from the Russian, asks for “this city”; the Greek asks for “this city and land”.

Where it comes from, and the Greek

When the earth shakes or the waters rise

Psalm 46

God is our refuge and strength,a help always near in times of trouble.

So we will not fear, though the earth gives way,though the mountains slide into the heart of the sea,though its waters roar and foamand the mountains shake as it surges.

There is a river whose streams bring joy to the city of God,the holy place where the Most High dwells.God is within the city; it will not fall.God will help it at the break of day.

The nations rage, and kingdoms totter;He raises His voice, and the earth melts.The LORD of hosts is with us;the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Come and see the works of the LORD,the ruins He has made on the earth:He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth;He breaks the bow and snaps the spear;He burns the chariots with fire.

“Be still, and know that I am God.I will be exalted among the nations;I will be exalted in the earth.”

The LORD of hosts is with us;the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Traditional wording, 1611

God is our refuge and strength,a very present help in trouble.

Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed,and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled,though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.

There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God,the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High.God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved:God shall help her, and that right early.

The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved:He uttered His voice, the earth melted.The LORD of hosts is with us;the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Come, behold the works of the LORD,what desolations He hath made in the earth.He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth;He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder;He burneth the chariot in the fire.

Be still, and know that I am God:I will be exalted among the heathen,I will be exalted in the earth.

The LORD of hosts is with us;the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Psalm 46 holds on to God while the ground gives way and the sea roars. Near its end God Himself says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

Plain English by Wiser Walk, from the Hebrew, with the King James Version beside it. How the wording is made. Traditional wording: The King James translators, The King James Version, 1611.

Where it comes from, and the original

To a saint · When fever spreads

Troparion of the Nine Martyrs of Cyzicus

Plain English only: no traditional English wording is given for this prayer

Holy nine martyrs,you came from different citiesand God’s will gathered you into one company.You suffered bravely for Christand defeated the unseen enemy.By your patience you put to shamethe rulers of a false faith and the torturers.The fire of love for God burned in you,and you turned the earthly fire that tortured you to coolness.

So Christ God gave you the graceto heal the shaking fever.By your prayers, save us too in your mercyfrom that fever and from suffering of every kind,we pray you.

A monastery near Kazan was built in honour of these martyrs, in the hope that their prayers would end the fever raging there in 1687. Their hymn asks them to save us from fever and every kind of suffering.

Plain English by Wiser Walk, from the Church Slavonic. How the wording is made.

Where it comes from, and the Church Slavonic

Scripture for this

⁵You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, ⁶nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the calamity that destroys at noon. ⁷Though a thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, no harm will come near you.

Psalm 91:5-7 In a time of plague, God’s people need not fear the pestilence that stalks in the darkness or the calamity that destroys at noon.

… and if My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14 God promised Solomon that when His people humble themselves and pray, He will hear from heaven and heal their land.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you go through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched; the flames will not set you ablaze.

Isaiah 43:2 God promises to be with His people in flood and fire, so the rivers will not overwhelm them and the flames will not burn them.

At sunset, all who were ill with various diseases were brought to Jesus, and laying His hands on each one, He healed them.

Luke 4:40 At sunset the sick were brought to Jesus, and He laid His hands on each one and healed them.

³⁸For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39 Neither death nor life, nor anything in all creation, can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

“‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,’ and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Revelation 21:4 At the end of all things God will wipe away every tear, and there will be no more death or pain.

Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.

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