When it is said
It is the first of the numbered prayers in the morning prayers of the Russian prayer book. It comes after Psalm 51 (Psalm 50 in the Orthodox numbering) and the Creed. Three more prayers under St Macarius’s name follow it.
The English prayer book of St Tikhon’s Seminary, used in the Orthodox Church in America, prints it first of five morning prayers under his name.
In Russian Psalters of the 1500s, it is part of a short service a monk said alone in his room, before the night prayers of the Midnight Office.
Where it comes from
Author doubtful
Who was Macarius?
St Macarius the Great, also called Macarius of Egypt, lived from about AD 300 to about 390. He founded the monks’ settlement of Scetis in the Egyptian desert. Russian prayer books also put his name over the first prayer before sleep.
Orthodox Encyclopedia, Macarius the Great (in Russian); Azbyka.ru, the morning prayers (in Russian)
Did Macarius write it?
No one can be sure. No Greek copy is known, and the oldest copies one study found are Russian, from about 1500. In one Psalter of that time, a section added in another hand gives it to “a certain Mark the monk”. Elsewhere the same book gives it to Macarius, “as usual”. The Orthodox Encyclopedia says a number of prayers under his name are clearly not his.
Priest Pyotr Pchelintsev, on the history of the morning and evening prayers (in Russian); Orthodox Encyclopedia, Macarius the Great (in Russian)
What the words mean
Why “without condemnation”?
A Russian note on the prayer gives the reason. Not everyone who says to Jesus “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven. Praise from an unworthy mouth could condemn the one who says it. So the prayer first asks to be cleansed. It asks for God’s will to be done in us. Only then does it praise Him.
The words of the Lenten bows
Its first words, “O God, cleanse me, a sinner”, are said in Lent too. The Church Slavonic book of hours gives them to each of the 12 small bows that come after the Prayer of St Ephraim.
The Scripture in it
But the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’
Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Church Slavonic
Боже, очисти мя грешнаго, яко николиже сотворих благое пред Тобою;
но избави мя от лукаваго, и да будет во мне воля Твоя,
да неосужденно отверзу уста моя недостойная и восхвалю имя Твое святое,
Отца и Сына и Святаго Духа, ныне и присно и во веки веков. Аминь.