A prayer to the Heavenly King is an appeal to the Holy Spirit. Its name comes from the two words with which the text of this prayer begins.
Starting from the bright Resurrection of Christ and until the celebration of the Ascension of the Lord, this initial prayer is replaced by the Easter troparion (“Christ is risen from the dead...”). From Ascension to Pentecost they skip it, reading the ones that follow it.
Prayer to the Heavenly King - text addressed to the Holy Spirit
Heavenly King, Comforter, Soul of truth, Who is everywhere and fulfills everything, Treasure of good things and Giver of life, come and dwell in us, and cleanse us from all filth, and save, O Good One, our souls.
TRANSLATION: Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of truth, abiding everywhere and filling everything, Source of blessings and Giver of life, come and dwell in us and cleanse us from all sin and save, O Good One, our souls.
The text is addressed to the Holy Spirit, who rules the lives of all people and the whole world. The text is addressed to the Comforter and Mentor. Only He can console in times of sadness, life's storms and misfortunes.
The Spirit is everywhere and fills everything with Itself. Only He is the repository from which all good things come, cleansing Christians from spiritual dirt and human sins.
Meaning: The Spirit of truth is omnipresent - abides everywhere and fills everything with His presence. The Spirit of Truth is the name given by the Lord Jesus Christ. He teaches everyone exclusively truthful knowledge that is useful for us and can serve the salvation of our souls.
He wisely rules our sinful world. He is the All-Seeing and the All-Knowing, supplying us according to our needs. He is a treasure, a source of what is true and beautiful.
It is no coincidence that Christians gave the name to the Holy Spirit - “Giver of Life”. What lives in this world is developed by the Holy Spirit. It was from Him that we received the opportunity to live. From Him comes the provision of Christian souls with a beautiful and endless afterlife. Only through Him are we given the opportunity to be cleansed from our sins.
People pray to God to come and dwell in us. This means that Christians strive to ensure that He is constantly present in us, as in their church. After all, Christians consider their bodies to be temples in which their immortal souls are enclosed.
We resort to the Lord with a prayer to cleanse our souls from sinful impurity. This will give us the opportunity to dwell in the Kingdom of God.
Video on the topic: Prayer to the Heavenly King
How to read an appeal to God correctly
Prayer is a way for a person’s soul to contact God. It will be powerful if the believer understands how to access Divine power. In prayer, it is not necessary to follow the text with emphasis exactly. The main thing is to have strong faith in the power of the Lord while reading. Such prayer requires a special mental attitude, which can be difficult to achieve. It requires concentration, distraction from vain thoughts and desires. This can be achieved only through constant willpower, overcoming doubts, forgetting for a moment troubles and sadness.
There is no need to try to lead yourself into religious ecstasy or achieve special inspiration. The Lord sees what is in the heart of every person. A prayer will be heard if it comes from the heart, the believer feels his own imperfection and sinfulness, and reveres the greatness and power of God. Daily appeal to the Heavenly King teaches meekness and humility before the will of the Lord.
Before you start reading any prayer in the morning, you should stand up, cross yourself and say: “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen". Then the text of the prayer appeal is pronounced: out loud or silently. You should not rush to ensure that the essence of each word reaches your consciousness.
The prayer to the Heavenly King can be read in Russian and Old Church Slavonic, with the exception of Monday after the celebration of Trinity (on the day of the Holy Spirit), when it should be said in Old Church Slavonic.
Who should Christians pray to and where should they purchase Orthodox prayer books?
We must pray to the Lord God, One in the Holy Trinity. Only our Heavenly Father can give us what will be useful to our soul. And we turn to the Most Holy Theotokos, all the saints of God and the Angelic Heavenly Powers with a request for their intercession before the Lord. Not a single prayer that comes from the heart, from the whole soul, remains unheard; the Queen of Heaven and the saints hear everything and at the right time provide the necessary help. Prayers to the saints and the Most Pure Lady can be found in Orthodox prayer books. It is necessary to purchase such books in Orthodox churches or monasteries. Books containing prayers must bear the blessing of the Russian Patriarch or the ruling Bishop or the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church.
If a person takes his first steps to the temple and is trying to strengthen his faith, he should not read prayers from secular newspapers or purchase spiritual literature in bookstores.
You can mistakenly buy occult literature that seems outwardly Christian. It is good to seek advice from a priest. It’s even better if there is a confessor who constantly monitors the state of the soul and the level of spiritual life of his child. You should not immediately try to master complex texts by offering long prayers. The simple, well-known prayers “Our Father” and “Hail, Virgin Mary” are no less effective. If you say them with faith, then the impossible will become possible. A childlike, sincere prayer to the Heavenly Father can work miracles.
The meaning of the Holy Spirit in Orthodoxy
The Holy Spirit is nothing more than the Third Person of the triune God - the Holy Trinity. The New Testament talks a lot about the Godhead. It is important to know that the Holy Spirit is not Jesus Christ or the Holy Father. This is a Deity sent by the Almighty to fulfill his will.
In the Holy Bible, the Holy Spirit is compared to breath, wind, life force, spirituality. He is invisible, incorporeal, but has enormous power. Thanks to the Holy Spirit, the Universe appeared, the Bible was written, people were able to understand the essence of the Christian religion, and comprehend the faith of Christ.
These are the invisible hands of God with which he creates. God's Spirit does not act arbitrarily, but at the command of the Almighty. This is God’s devoted assistant, proclaiming, guiding, and helping at God’s command. The Deity often descends on individuals and gives them Gifts (speech, revelations, powers) and supernatural abilities. In iconography, the Third Hypostasis is depicted as a dove soaring in the sky.
When a person is baptized, he remembers, along with the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit. The third hypostasis is also considered God. To be baptized in the name of God's Spirit is to acknowledge the power of the Deity and its important role in carrying out the will of the Most High. At the Council of Constantinople in 381, that is, 250 years after the death of the last of the apostles, it was customary to consider the Holy Spirit to be the most holy Divine person. This is God existing everywhere. The Divine lives even in people who have converted to Christianity. It can be in the souls of millions of Christians, everywhere and at the same time. The importance of the Third Hypostasis is equal to that of the most holy God the Father and the Son.
The Holy Spirit convicts people of their sins. The deity addresses a person through his conscience, calling the believer to repentance. God's Spirit leads people to the Lord and holy Faith. The Divine lives inside every person who has converted to Christianity, helps the believer become a spiritual person, resist devilish temptations, and understand God's truth.
The main thing that Christians must remember is that prayers and calls addressed to the Holy Spirit cleanse souls from sin and sinful thoughts. Living with the holiest Divinity in your heart, you can count on the fulfillment of any desire. Faith in the Savior is unthinkable without receiving God's Spirit. It not only heals the human heart, but also helps the human mind to accept Divine truth.
The Third Kingdom is the Kingdom of the Glory of God, which will be inherited by God’s chosen people and His angels. It refers to the world to come. The blessing of this triune Kingdom of God was taught to us by the Lord Jesus Christ in the gospel prayer “Our Father.” Which ends with words of blessing, For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. (Matt. 6.13). For Yours (the Great God) is the Kingdom (the Kingdom of grace of the Holy Spirit) and power (Your power is unlimited by anything in Your creation, You are the Creator and Almighty Almighty of all that You have created) and glory (You are Lord, glorious in all Your works, Your works and creation called to Your ineffable [2] Glory, which those who trust in You and follow Your will will inherit forever. Amen.
Orthodox prayers offer a number of important prayers for the deceased, which should be read at certain periods. It is believed that one should pray most diligently for a deceased person in the first 40 days after his death. It is during this period that the fate of a person is decided by Higher powers. It is very important to pray with full concentration on thoughts of the deceased.
Prayer for the 9th day for the deceased
It is believed that from the 3rd to the 9th day the deceased is shown all the delights of heavenly life. Therefore, in order to increase the chances of a loved one going to heaven, it is necessary to arrange a wake on the 9th day. On this day you should also visit the temple to light a candle for the repose and, if possible, order a prayer service.
The prayer request on the 9th day after death sounds, when read independently, as follows:
“God of spirits and all flesh, you have trampled death and abolished the devil himself, and given life to the whole world! I ask, Merciful Lord, rest in peace the soul of Your departed servant, as well as all the patriarchs and metropolitans, your Eminences and Holinesses, the ministers of the church in any active rank, who sincerely served you, those creators of this temple, all Orthodox people resting here and in other places, as well as all the soldiers and their leaders who served their fatherland with honor and truth, who laid down their lives for their faith, who were killed in various internecine battles, all those who drowned and burned, who froze in the terrible cold, who were torn to pieces by fierce beasts, those who died suddenly, who did not have time to repent of their sins and to reconcile with the Church, those who committed suicide in a frenzy of soul and were deprived of the opportunity to be buried according to Orthodox traditions. Rest all souls and save them, forgive all known and unknown sins, committed by word or thought, since you are the only God who loves mankind. The truth on earth is only yours and only you can truly give everyone what they deserve. Rest your souls and grant them resurrection into the Kingdom of Heaven, I send up glory to you without beginning, and I signify myself with the cross. From now on and forever. Amen".
How to properly wish for the Kingdom of Heaven
So, after death, the soul cannot change anything on its own. But the relatives and friends of a deceased person can help his soul. To do this, you need to pray, ask God for the forgiveness of her sins.
“In life, the king’s earthly friend may intercede with him to help some condemned person. Likewise, if a person is a “friend” of God, then he can intercede with his prayer before God” (Rev. Paisius the Svyatogorets, “Words.” Volume 4).
After death, only a private, preliminary judgment of the soul occurs. It shows how deeply rooted passions are in a person’s soul and how close he was to God during his lifetime. A private court determines the soul to the “place” that most corresponds to its condition. Heaven is the afterlife with God. Hell is the absence of God. Being close to God for an unrepentant sinner would be even more unbearable than being in hell. There is no intermediate, neutral state of soul in Orthodoxy. Unlike Catholicism, which has the concept of purgatory.
However, just as in heaven there are different degrees of closeness to God, so in hell souls suffer in different ways. The final Last Judgment will occur at the end of time after the Second Coming of Christ. The prayerful care of living people can not only ease the preliminary fate of the soul. She is capable of serving as her justification at the coming terrible Judgment. Therefore, to the question of how to correctly wish the soul the Kingdom of Heaven, the answer is through church and home commemoration.
“Just as when we visit prisoners, we bring them soft drinks and the like and thereby alleviate their suffering, so we alleviate the suffering of the deceased with prayers and alms that we perform for the repose of their souls” (Reverend Paisius the Svyatogorets, “Words.” Vol. 4)
