When it is said
In 2011 the Russian Holy Synod said that relatives of someone who took their own life may read this prayer at home, with a priest’s blessing.
It added that what helps the one who died most of all is alms given for them and a godly life in the family they left.
Where it comes from
Author known
A son’s grief
St Leo was a monk of Optina Monastery in Russia, where people of every class came to him for help. A disciple whose father had taken his own life told him he could not stop grieving, because he loved his father. St Leo gave him these words to pray. He told him that God “incomparably more than you do, loved and loves him”, and so to leave his father to God’s goodness.
St Leo’s answer, Gleanings (St Nicholas Orthodox Church, McKinney); OrthodoxWiki, Leonid of Optina
For those outside the Church
Russian Orthodox writers also give St Leo’s words for praying at home for anyone who died outside the Church. Bishop Athanasius (Sakharov) wrote a book on how the Church remembers the dead. In it he says that at home, with a spiritual father’s blessing, people may remember even those who cannot be named at a church service.
Archpriest Konstantin Bufeyev, on prayer for the non-Orthodox (Azbyka)
Copied out for grieving families
St Ambrose of Optina wrote to a nun about a man who had taken his own life. His sister and family could pray for him at home, he said, as St Leo had allowed. He asked her to copy out the prayer and give it to them, and he wrote that it had calmed and comforted many.
Archpriest Konstantin Bufeyev, quoting St Ambrose’s letters (Azbyka)
What the words mean
“Lost”
The Slavonic word here usually means “perished”, as the older English has it. A note in a Russian prayer book says that in this prayer it can also be read as “lost”, in the sense of gone missing. The plain wording follows that note.
The Scripture in it
“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and untraceable His ways!
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Church Slavonic
Взыщи, Господи, погибшую душу раба Твоего (имярек):
аще возможно есть, помилуй.
Неизследимы судьбы Твои.
Не постави мне в грех молитвы сей моей,
но да будет святая воля Твоя.