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Prayers

Troparion for the sick

A short hymn, or troparion, asking Christ to come quickly to someone who is ill. It is said at home, and sung in Holy Unction, the anointing of the sick.

Picture: John Bridges, Christ Healing the Mother of Simon Peter’s Wife, 1839

The words of the prayer

Plain English

O Christ, You alone are quick to help.Come quickly from on highand visit Your suffering servant (name).Free them from sickness and bitter pain.Raise them up to sing to Youand glorify You without ceasing,through the prayers of the Mother of God,O only Lover of mankind.

O Christ, You alone are quick to help.Come quickly from on highand visit me, Your suffering servant.Free me from sickness and bitter pain.Raise me up to sing to Youand glorify You without ceasing,through the prayers of the Mother of God,O only Lover of mankind.

Traditional wording, 1894

Thou that alone art quick to help, O Christ,make manifest from on high a speedy visitation to Thine ailing servant:deliver him from sicknesses and bitter pains,and raise him up, that, without ceasing, he may praise and glorify Thee,through the God-bearing one’s entreaties,O Thou sole Lover of mankind.

Plain English by Wiser Walk, from the Greek. How the wording is made. Traditional wording: G. V. Shann, Book of Needs of the Holy Orthodox Church, 1894.

When it is said

It is the hymn of the Russian Church’s prayer service for the sick, and it comes first under “Prayers for the sick” in Russian prayer books. The Orthodox Church in America prints it alone under “For the Sick”. So it is the short prayer an Orthodox Christian says at home for someone who is ill.

It is also sung in Holy Unction, a different service, in which the sick are anointed with oil. There it comes twice near the start: once before the oil is blessed, and again while it is blessed.

Where it comes from

No author known

No author, and no certain age

The service books name no author. Even its century is not known. It is in Greek service books printed in 1862 and 1872. A Russian study of Holy Unction finds it missing from most copies made from the 1300s to the 1500s. So it may be a late addition.

Great Euchologion, Venice 1862; Pravoslavie.Ru, on the history of the Unction service

For one person, or for many

The Greek prays for “Your suffering servants”, in the plural. So do Russian prayer books. But in Holy Unction the Russian Church’s Slavonic prays for one “suffering servant”. The traditional English translations follow it. Anyone praying for one person says “servant” and adds the name.

Greek text, glt.goarch.org; Slavonic text of Holy Unction, Azbyka; Russian prayer book, Azbyka

“Quick” to help

In Greek the hymn opens with the word for “quick”, tachys. The Greek books set it to the tune of another hymn that opens almost the same way: “Tachy prokatalabe”, “Come quickly”. The Russian Church’s Slavonic opens “quick to defend”, not “quick to help”. So the Orthodox Church in America’s English calls Christ “our Defender”.

Greek text, glt.goarch.org; Slavonic text of Holy Unction, Azbyka; Orthodox Church in America, Common Prayers: For the Sick

The Scripture in it

And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick. The Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.

James 5:15 Echoed Holy Unction is built on this passage, and the hymn asks Christ to raise the sick person up.

But You, O LORD, be not far off; O my Strength, come quickly to help me.

Psalm 22:19 Echoed The hymn calls Christ the One Who alone is quick to help.

… because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the Dawn will visit us from on high …

Luke 1:78 Echoed The hymn asks Christ to come quickly from on high and visit the sick.

Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.

In Greek

Ταχὺς εἰς ἀντίληψιν, μόνος ὑπάρχων Χριστέ,

ταχεῖαν τὴν ἄνωθεν, δεῖξον ἐπίσκεψιν, τοῖς πάσχουσι δούλοις Σου·

λύτρωσαι νοσημάτων, καὶ πικρῶν ἀλγηδόνων·

ἔγειρον τοῦ ὑμνεῖν Σε, καὶ δοξάζειν ἀπαύστως·

πρεσβείαις τῆς Θεοτόκου, μόνε Φιλάνθρωπε.

From the service of Holy Unction, on the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America’s liturgical texts site.

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Berean Standard Bible