When it is said
A troparion is a short hymn of a single stanza. Today’s Russian prayer book puts this one first among the prayers before any work, ahead of O Heavenly King and the prayer before any task.
In church it is sung at a short service of prayer for the start of a new undertaking.
In 2023 the Holy Synod of the Russian Church approved a new service for people looking for work, and the troparion is sung there too.
Where it comes from
No author known
Who wrote it?
No one knows who wrote it or when. The Russian Church’s book of short prayer services gives it in a slightly different form. There it asks God to direct “the good intention of Your servants”. Today’s Russian prayer book has “the work of our hands” instead, and so does the English that St Tikhon’s Monastery in Pennsylvania published in 1999 in its Great Book of Needs.
The service before beginning a work, Book of Molebens (Azbyka.ru); The Great Book of Needs, Volume IV (St Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 1999)
The psalm it echoes
The Slavonic Bible gives Psalm 90:17 as a request that God “direct the works of our hands”. The troparion makes the same request in the same Slavonic words. The Church’s short service of prayer before a new undertaking also sings that verse, just before its reading from Scripture.
The service before beginning a work, Book of Molebens (Azbyka.ru)
The Scripture in it
May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish for us the work of our hands—yes, establish the work of our hands!
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Church Slavonic
Творче и Создателю всяческих, Боже,
дела рук наших, к славе Твоей начинаемая,
Твоим благословением спешно исправи,
и нас от всякаго зла избави,
яко един всесилен и Человеколюбец.