Oh, Holy Angel, my good Guardian and Patron! With a contrite heart and a sick soul, I stand before you, praying: hear me, your sinful servant (your name), with a strong cry and a bitter cry: do not remember my iniquities and untruths, with which I, the accursed one, anger you all day and hour, and I create an abomination before our Creator, the Lord! Show yourself merciful to me and do not leave me unfavorably even until my death. Arouse me from the sleep of sin and with Your prayers help me to pass the rest of my life without blemish and create fruits worthy of repentance; Above all, protect me from mortal falls: may I not perish in despair, and may the enemy not rejoice over my death! I truly confess with my lips that no one is such a friend and intercessor, protector and champion, as you are the Holy Angel! Standing before the throne of the Lord, pray for me, indecent and more sinful than all others; May the Most Good One not take away my soul on the day of my hopelessness and on the day of the creation of evil.
Do not cease to propitiate the Most Merciful Lord and my God, may He forgive me the sins that I have committed throughout my life, in deed, in word, and with all my feelings, and in the image of fate, may He save me, may He punish me here according to His ineffable mercy, but may He not convict and punish me with impartial justice. To yours; may he vouchsafe me to bring repentance, and with repentance may I be worthy of receiving Divine Communion, for this I pray even more, and I earnestly desire such a gift.
In the terrible hour of death, be persistent with me, my good guardian, driving away the dark demons that have the power to frighten my trembling soul; protect me from those traps, when the Imam passes through airy ordeals, yes, we protect you, I will safely reach the paradise I desire, where the faces of the saints and heavenly Powers constantly praise the all-honorable and magnificent name in the Trinity of the glorified God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and to Him is due honor and worship in forever and ever. Amen.
Prayer to Jesus the Sweetest of the Akathists of Jesus
To you, Lord, the only good and unforgettable evil one, I confess my sins, to you I fall, crying out, unworthy: I have sinned, Lord, I have sinned, and I am not worthy to look up to the heights of heaven, because of the multitude of my iniquities. But, my Lord, Lord, grant me tears of compunction, O One who is Blessed and Merciful, for with them I beg You to be cleansed before the end from all sin; It’s a scary and menacing place for the imam to pass through, their bodies being separated, and a multitude of dark and inhuman demons will be buried in me, and no one will help or deliver me. Thus I bow down to Your goodness, do not betray me to those who offend me, below let my enemies boast about me, Good Lord, below let them say: you came into our hands and you were betrayed to us. Neither, Lord, do not forget Your compassions, and do not reward me for my iniquities and do not turn Your face away from me; but punish me Yourself, with Your usual mercy and bounties: but my enemy will not rejoice! Stop the threats and destroy his actions against me! Oh, Good Lord! Give me a blameless path to You; for even though I had sinned, I did not resort to any other doctor besides You, and I did not stretch out my hands to a strange God!
Do not reject my prayer; but hear me, according to Thy goodness: and establish Thy fear in my heart! May Thy grace be upon me, O Lord, like fire, consuming all unclean thoughts within me; for You, Lord, are light, greater than all light! Joy, greater than any joy! Calm - greater than any calm! True life and salvation that endures forever and ever. Amen.
That is why, when performing Chrismation on people of other faiths of other Christian confessions (Lutherans, Catholics, etc.), converting to Orthodoxy, or during the Baptism of non-Christians, they are required to solemnly, three times and publicly pronounce the Orthodox Creed; just as during the sacrament of baptism of an Orthodox baby, his recipients, as if vouching for the faithful fulfillment of the Creed by those being baptized, throughout his life, on his behalf loudly pronounce the entire Creed.
On the Mount of Olives, not far from the peaks of the Ascension and below those places where Christ, sitting with his disciples, predicted for them the end of the world; where He mourned Jerusalem (these places are indicated by the ruins of the churches of St. Helena); where the Lord’s Prayer was taught to the Apostles by Our Father (a fragment of a column can be seen here) - on the ledges of rocks facing Vivania, there are still the ruins of an extraordinary building, divided as if by lodges (of which, as they say, there were 12): this, according to stories, was the house where the Apostles gathered to compose the Creed. (See Guide to the Holy Place. A.S. Norov. T. 3, part 1, p. 115).
The 1st Ecumenical Council (First Nicaea) took place in 325 AD, in the city of Nicaea (in Bithynia). He consisted, at the invitation of the Emperor. Constantine the Great, from 318 Holy Fathers, and the main subject of his studies was the establishment of the true teaching about the Son of God, against the false teaching of Arius, who rejected in Jesus Christ the consubstantiality with God the Father and called Him an ordinary man (a being created in time). This council refuted the teachings of Arius, and, in accordance with the words of the Apostles, set forth the Creed in all its completeness and certainty. (Téodoret. de p. Nicaen et alii plurimi). At this Council, Saint Nicholas of Lycia, in a fit of indignation for insulting the holy faith, hit Arius on the cheek, and condemned by the Fathers of the Council for this act, incompatible with the dignity of the Saint and the solemn significance of the Council, was at the same time justified by God Himself: many of those present, by the revelation of God, saw here how the Lord Jesus Christ himself handed him the Gospel, and the Mother of God placed on him the omophorion, which the Saint was deprived of by the verdict of the Council. From this revelation the Holy Fathers understood that the act of St.
Nicholas was pleasing to God, and therefore they left him outside of any punishment. (Herman. Gigas, in fascic. temper.). At the same time, St. Spyridon and St. Alexander, in addition to words of conviction against the like-minded people of Arius, showed amazing miracles over them; the first one extracted from brick, in confirmation of the unity of the Holy Trinity, fire, water and plinth; and the other miraculously shamed the pagan philosopher, who asked the Emperor for permission to compete with him about faith, making him speechless in the name of Jesus Christ. - (Epiph., Haer. LXIX. lib. I. p. III, Athanes. orar. I. contr. Ar.).
The 2nd Ecumenical Council (1st Constantinople) took place in 381 AD in Constantinople. He consisted, at the invitation of the Emperor. Theodosius the Great, from 150 Holy Fathers and the subject of his studies (for 3 years) was the refutation of the false teaching of the Doukhobor sect, who, under the leadership of the false teacher Macedonius, rejected the Divinity of the Holy Spirit, calling it a created force serving the Son of God as Angels. By the resolution of this Council, Macedonius and his followers were excommunicated from the church, and at the same time, by the general consent of the Holy Fathers, the 8th article of the Nicene Creed, regarding the veneration of the Divinity of the Holy Spirit, was added. (T. II. homil. et Maimburg. Hist. Arianismi. lib. VI. Teodoret. lib. V. c. IX). The exposition of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit contained here is attributed to St. Gregory the Theologian.
Near the steep cliffs of the mountain side of Jerusalem lies a deep ravine dotted with graves: this is the Valley of Jehoshaphat, or the Valley of Cedars. The word Jehoshaphat in Hebrew means: Jehovah judges, and therefore the name of this valley expresses the terrible judgment and I will gather all the tongues, and I will bring them to the valley of Jehoshaphat and will reason with them, said the Lord through the mouth of the Prophet Joel (Joel 3:2). Christians, Jews and even Mohammedans look at this valley as a solemn place for a future great event. This valley has been from the most distant times the site of a people's cemetery, or human grave (2 Kings 22:20). The ashes of countless generations and the ashes of the many times destroyed Jerusalem, falling asleep from the steep slopes, were finally dried up by the Cedar stream, which rushed along it, which received its name from the Hebrew word blackness, because its water always seemed black, both from the depth of the channel and the steepness of the banks, and from the shadow of the thick olive trees hanging over it along its entire length. (See the guide to the Holy Place. A.S. Norov, vol. 3. part 1. p. 120).