General prayers of thanksgiving

[sinjin smithe]

Does anyone know where I can find general prayers of thanksgiving to God? I would greatly appreciate any help.

[Richard McBride]

Blessed of the Lord Sinjin:
Remembering your search for prayers, I will send this address, which is not what you wanted, but maybe it will lead to something:

http://www.orlapubs.com/AR/R41.html

The only thing I have is "A Pocket Prayer Book for Orthodox Christians, Containing Daily and Occasional Prayers"

It is published by the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, and is very popular in the States.

The Antiochian Church of Saint George at Regents Park might have some. If not, let me know and I will try to send one to you.

richard

[sinjin smithe]

Richard,
Thank you for the link. I have the same prayer book that you have and I did not see a general prayer of thanksgiving. Thank you for your help.

[Richard McBride]

Probably, then, the prayers I've seen were too focused:
"Thanksgiving After Deliverance from Trouble" pg22;
"Thanksgiving After Recovery from Sickness" pg23;
but the short prayer number "1" after Convession is general; pg45;
Prayer number "2" after Holy Communion is fairly general; pg 53;
then prayer number "3": "A Prayer of St.Basil the Great" is more general, pg54;
And in using the Choral Response:
"We praise thee, we bless thee, we give thanks unot thee, O Lord, and we pray unto thee, O our God............ [one may more easily add one's own thoughts, after such a nice start;]

I'm sorry these do not fit, but I understand that you probably want something very upbeat. If I find one, I'll "ring you up".

richard

[Thomas Garland]

Dear Sinjin,

How about this troparion/kontakion pair?

We, thy thankful and unworthy servants, praise and glorify thee, O Lord, for thy great benefits which we have received: we bless thee, we thank thee, we sing to thee and we magnify thy great goodness, and in lowliness and love we hymn thee: O Benefactor and Saviour, glory to thee.

We, unworthy recipients of thy gifts, as unprofitable servants dare to turn to thee, O Master, bringing thee thanks according to our powers, and glorifying and hymning thee, the Benefactor and Creator; glory to thee, O most bountiful God.

These are from the little 'Manual of Eastern Orthodox Prayers', widely used in Britain - and presumably in America, since it is nowadays printed by St Vladimir's Seminary Press.

I've also seen the same verses on the back of a little reproduction ikon of the Saviour that I once bought.

There is also the 'Great Office of Thanksgiving', given on p550 of Hapgood's 'Service Book of the Orthodox Church'.

Some of the prayers of thanksgiving after Communion (from both books) could well be read as general thanksgiving.

Incidentally, Fr Sophrony of blessed memory, the founder of the Monastery of St John the Baptist, Tolleshunt Knights, UK, was obviously very struck by the (original) Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as you can hear odd phrases from the BCP in some of the devotions at the monastery! If you read some of those prayers, they seem to have a very Orthodox feel. I'm sure I heard something from the BCP General Thanksgiving when I was at TK.

with love,

Thomas

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Sinjin and others,

A full molieben service of thanksgiving can be found online at:

http://www.orthodox.net/services/thanks.htm

This is an English translation of the general molieben of Thanksgiving according to the Russian practice. Another edition can be had, as Thomas mentioned, in Hapgood's Service Book: pp. 559-563 for the General Molieben; pp. 550-556 for the Great Office of Thanksgiving (it should be noted that this latter Great Office is actually an historical service particular to the Russian tradition - an offering of thanks for the deliverance of Russia; it is rarely used as a general service of the Church).

The General Molieben is filled with numerous troparia and prayers of thanksgiving to God, some of which can be extracted for the formation of shorter, private rules of thanksgiving prayers (as is done, for example, in many of the smaller 'prayer books' available from the various jurisdictions).

INXC, Matthew