When it is said
The Russian morning prayers include a short prayer for the living, and it names your spiritual father first. For those who have the time, the prayer books give a longer list in its place, each line said with a bow. These two lines come from that list.
Say the name of your own priest where the prayer asks for it.
The Church asks the same in its services. Early in Vespers, the evening service, it prays for its clergy in the Great Litany.
Where it comes from
No author known
No known author
No one knows who wrote these lines. They belong to the list of petitions for the living in the Russian prayer books. G. V. Shann put them into English in his Orthodox prayer book of 1891, among his “Diptychs, or Remembrancer”, with a bow after each. The Jordanville prayer book, an English Orthodox prayer book of today, keeps them in its morning prayers.
G. V. Shann, Euchology (1891), Diptychs, or Remembrancer; Jordanville Prayer Book, Morning Prayers
In church too
Early in Vespers comes the Great Litany, a chain of short petitions. One asks for the patriarch or synod, for the bishop, for “the honourable Presbytery”, meaning the priests, for the deacons, and for all the clergy and the people. After each petition the choir answers, “Lord, have mercy.”
What the words mean
Which patriarch?
The prayer books differ on whom this prayer names first. The Russian book prays for its own patriarch by name. The Jordanville prayer book prays for “the holy Eastern Orthodox patriarchs”, and Shann’s book of 1891 for the Governing Synod and the ecumenical patriarchs. This page prays, with Jordanville, for all the Orthodox patriarchs.
Azbyka.ru, Commemoration of the living and the departed; Jordanville Prayer Book, Morning Prayers; G. V. Shann, Euchology (1891), Diptychs, or Remembrancer
The Scripture in it
Be shepherds of God’s flock that is among you, watching over them not out of compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not out of greed, but out of eagerness …
Keep watch over yourselves and the entire flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood.
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Church Slavonic
Спаси, Господи, и помилуй Великаго Господина и Отца нашего Святейшаго Патриарха (имя),
преосвященныя митрополиты, архиепископы и епископы православныя, иереи же и диаконы, и весь причет церковный,
яже поставил еси пасти словесное Твое стадо, и молитвами их помилуй и спаси мя грешнаго.
Спаси, Господи, и помилуй отца моего духовнаго (имя),
и святыми его молитвами прости моя согрешения.