When it is said
It is said once a year, on the day of Pentecost, at the evening service of Vespers. Pentecost falls seven weeks after Easter. The priest reads it while everyone kneels.
In many parishes this Vespers follows straight after the morning Liturgy of the feast.
Its words fit any day when you are close to giving up hope.
Where it comes from
Author by tradition
Once a year, on bended knees
From Easter until Pentecost, Orthodox Christians do not bow to the ground in church. Now everyone kneels, and the deacon calls out: “Again, yet again, on bended knees let us pray to the Lord.” Then the priest reads this prayer.
Isabel F. Hapgood, Service Book (1906), Pentecost; Wikipedia, Pentecost
Credited to St Basil
Tradition credits the kneeling prayers of Pentecost to St Basil the Great, a bishop in Cappadocia who died in AD 379. The English service book Isabel Hapgood made in 1906 names no author: it heads this one simply “The Second Prayer”. It speaks to Christ, and opens with thanks for the Holy Spirit He sent on the apostles. This page prints only its opening words and its central part.
Isabel F. Hapgood, Service Book (1906), Pentecost; Wikipedia, Pentecost; Wikipedia, Basil of Caesarea
What the words mean
Into the sea of mercy
The Greek says the soul’s despair is thrown “into the sea of Your mercy”: the word is pelagos, the open sea. Hapgood’s English calls it “the great deep of Thy mercy”.
The Greek Pentecostarion (Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America); Isabel F. Hapgood, Service Book (1906), Pentecost
The Scripture in it
The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His nature, upholding all things by His powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words.
Let me hear Your loving devotion in the morning, for I have put my trust in You. Teach me the way I should walk, for to You I lift up my soul.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Greek
Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν,
Σὺ οὖν τὸ ἀπαύγασμα τοῦ Πατρός, ὁ τῆς οὐσίας καὶ τῆς φύσεως αὐτοῦ ἀπαράλλακτος, καὶ ἀμετακίνητος χαρακτήρ, ἡ πηγὴ τῆς σωτηρίας καὶ τῆς χάριτος, διάνοιξον κἀμοῦ τοῦ ἁμαρτωλοῦ τὰ χείλη, καὶ δίδαξόν με πῶς δεῖ, καὶ ὑπὲρ ὧν χρὴ προσεύχεσθαι.
Σὺ γὰρ εἶ, ὁ γινώσκων τὸ πολὺ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν μου πλῆθος, ἀλλ' ἡ Σὴ εὐσπλαγχνία νικήσει τούτων τὸ ἄμετρον· ἰδοὺ γὰρ φόβῳ παρίσταμαί Σοι, εἰς τὸ πέλαγος τοῦ ἐλέους Σου τὴν ἀπόγνωσιν ἀπορρίψας τῆς ψυχῆς μου.
Κυβέρνησόν μου τὴν ζωήν, ὁ πᾶσαν ῥήματι τὴν κτίσιν ἀρρήτῳ σοφίας δυνάμει κυβερνῶν, ὁ εὔδιος τῶν χειμαζομένων λιμήν, καὶ γνώρισόν μοι ὁδόν, ἐν ᾗ πορεύσομαι.
Πνεῦμα σοφίας Σου, τοῖς ἐμοῖς παράσχου διαλογισμοῖς, Πνεῦμα συνέσεως τῇ ἀφροσύνῃ μου δωρούμενος.
Πνεῦμα φόβου Σου τοῖς ἐμοῖς ἐπισκίασον ἔργοις καὶ Πνεῦμα εὐθὲς ἐγκαίνισον ἐν τοῖς ἐγκάτοις μου, καὶ Πνεύματι ἡγεμονικῷ τὸ τῆς διανοίας μου στήριξον ὀλισθηρόν, ἵνα καθ' ἑκάστην ἡμέραν, τῷ Πνεύματί Σου τῷ ἀγαθῷ, πρὸς τὸ συμφέρον ὁδηγούμενος, καταξιωθῶ ποιεῖν τὰς ἐντολάς Σου.