When it is said
It belongs to no church service.
Russian prayer books print it under the heading “When you notice a sin in yourself”, to be said with the sign of the cross.
Where it comes from
Author known
Written in his diary
St John of Kronstadt’s diary was printed in his lifetime as My Life in Christ and went through eight editions. In one entry he asks you to believe, each time you make the sign of the cross, that your sins are nailed to the Cross. When you fall into a sin, you are to judge yourself honestly at once, cross yourself and say this prayer.
My Life in Christ, vol. 2, no. 943 (Russian edition of 1893, Azbyka); My Life in Christ, tr. E. E. Goulaeff (1897), pp. 309-310
Who was St John of Kronstadt?
He was a Russian priest who served from 1855 at St Andrew’s Cathedral in Kronstadt, the naval base near St Petersburg. He often gave the poor his last coins. People in Kronstadt saw him walk home barefoot because he had given his shoes away. He died in 1908 and was declared a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in 1964, then by the Church in Russia in 1990.
Orthodox Church in America, life of St John of Kronstadt; Wikipedia, “John of Kronstadt”
What the words mean
The last line is a psalm
The prayer ends with the opening words of Psalm 51, David’s psalm of repentance. A few entries later in his diary, St John urges anyone who has sinned to say that whole psalm from the heart, straight away. If it does not help the first time, they should say it again, still more heartily.
My Life in Christ, vol. 2, nos. 943 and 948 (Russian edition of 1893, Azbyka); My Life in Christ, tr. E. E. Goulaeff (1897), p. 310
The Scripture in it
… having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross!
Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your loving devotion; according to Your great compassion, blot out my transgressions.
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Church Slavonic
Го́споди! Грехи́ на́ши на кресте́ пригвозди́вый,
пригвозди́ ко кресту́ Твоему́ и настоя́щий мой грех
и поми́луй мя по вели́цей Твое́й ми́лости.
(И наложить на себя крестное знамение.)
From Azbyka’s Russian prayer book, “When you notice a sin in yourself”, from his diary.