The present Prayerbook contains the most basic daily prayers of the
Orthodox Christian as they have been transmitted to us essentially by the
Russian Church, although the other Orthodox Traditions in this matter are
very similar.
In this book, we will find the Psalms of the Holy Prophet King David, the
prayer which Our Lord Himself taught His holy disciples, prayers of the
desert fathers, prayers of the great hierarchs and teachers of the
Church, as well as the prayers of more recent fathers.
The publication of such prayers does not limit the free expression of the
Christian soul to the Creator, the Most-holy Theotokos and the Saints. On
the contrary, by reading these prayers we learn how to pray. They become
models for our own, personal prayers. Often, we would like to pray but,
distracted by the bustling world around us, or troubled by fear or
sorrow, we do not even know how to begin. We then begin with the
Prayerbook and find that not only much of what we wanted to say is
included in the prayers of the fathers, but that afterwards, we find
words of our own to continue the outpouring of our soul.
There is yet another gift in the Prayerbook. As Orthodox Christians we
are all members of the same Body. We express and partake of that oneness
in the services of the Church, especially in the Divine Liturgy. Through
the Prayerbook, this oneness is brought into our homes or any place that
an Orthodox Christian reads it. Our own prayers are carried to the Throne
of God on the wings of prayers that have been used by the People of God
for centuries. We no longer pray alone.