When it is said
The priest gives it near the end of an Orthodox wedding, after the crowns are taken off. Then the guests come up to congratulate the couple.
Outside church, a parent or a friend might say its words over a couple as a prayer: at the wedding meal, or on an anniversary.
Where it comes from
No author known
When the crowns come off
Near the end of the wedding the priest lifts the crowns from the couple’s heads. To the groom he says: be exalted like Abraham, blessed like Isaac and increased like Jacob. To the bride he says: be exalted like Sarah, glad like Rebecca and increased like Rachel. One more prayer follows, and then this blessing.
G. V. Shann, Book of Needs of the Holy Orthodox Church (1894)
Why crowns?
Orthodox couples are married with crowns on their heads. In 1906 Isabel Hapgood put the service into English. She wrote that the crowns stand for the honour and reward of a pure life. In Greece, she noted, they are woven of olive or laurel with flowers. Russian churches keep metal crowns, with an icon of Christ on the groom’s and of His Mother on the bride’s.
The cup and the circle
Earlier in the service the couple drink three times from one cup. Hapgood called it the cup of joy and sorrow, which they will now share. Then the priest leads them three times in a circle, around a stand holding the Gospel and the cross. The circle, she wrote, stands for eternity. Going round three times honours the Holy Trinity.
G. V. Shann, Book of Needs of the Holy Orthodox Church (1894); Isabel F. Hapgood, Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church (1906), notes to the marriage service
The Scripture in it
May the LORD bless you from Zion, that you may see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life, that you may see your children’s children. Peace be upon Israel!
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Greek
Ὁ Πατήρ, ὁ Υἱὸς καὶ τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα,
ἡ παναγία καὶ ὁμοούσιος καὶ ζωαρχικὴ Τριάς,
ἡ μία Θεότης καὶ Βασιλεία,
εὐλογήσαι ὑμᾶς,
καὶ παράσχοι ὑμῖν μακροζωΐαν, εὐτεκνίαν, προκοπὴν βίου καὶ πίστεως,
καὶ ἐμπλήσαι ὑμᾶς πάντων τῶν ἐπὶ γῆς ἀγαθῶν,
ἀξιώσαι δὲ ὑμᾶς καὶ τῶν ἐπηγγελμένων ἀγαθῶν τῆς ἀπολαύσεως,
πρεσβείαις τῆς ἁγίας Θεοτόκου, καὶ πάντων τῶν Ἁγίων. Ἀμήν.