SERBIA: PRAYER FOR SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY READ AT EVERY SERVICE

Belgrade, September 14, 2022

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According to the decision of His Holiness Patriarch Porfirije, a prayer for the sanctity of marriage and family and harmony and peace in the nation is now read at every service in all churches and monasteries.

The decision was made, “considering the challenges and temptations that our Church and its faithful people are facing,” the Serbian Church reports.

Tens of thousands of Serbian Orthodox faithful came out to the Cathedral of St. Sava in Belgrade earlier this week for a moleben for the sanctity of marriage and the family and harmony and peace in Serbia.

The prayer rally and the Patriarch’s decision to have the prayer read at all services are part of a fight for traditional morality against movements such as EuroPride, a pan-European LGBT event that was planned to be held in Belgrade this week.

The prayer reads (machine translation):

Lord God, Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and of all beings, and man, whom after all other creatures you created in your image and likeness and therefore the most perfect among created beings, you created man as male and female, as one two and two at the same time, and thus from the beginning you instituted marriage, and you commanded: "Be fruitful and multiply", and thus at the same time you instituted the family as a union of love in You, perfected in the holy Mystery of love in Your Christ; You alone, Lord, who loves people, the One, glorified in the Holy Trinity, maintain and multiply Your love, Your grace and Your blessing in every marriage and in every family, in our kindred and in Your whole world, especially in our days, when invisible forces the malice of heaven and visible, conscious and unconscious, their servants,

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Man, our Saviour, You performed Your first divine-human miracle, a sign of Your love for humanity, precisely at a wedding, a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and thereby You showed and proved that marriage is honorable and the matrimonial bed is blameless, which was confirmed by all your holy apostles and disciples, who godly and rightly called you, in addition to everything else, the Bridegroom of Your Church, and her Your Bride, especially Your holy apostle Paul, who boldly and divinely inspired mentioned the love and unity of husband and wife as the image of the love and unity of You and Your holy Church; You Yourself, Christ the Lord, maintain and multiply Your love, Your grace and Your blessing in every marriage and in every family, in our kindred and in Your whole world, especially in our days, when the invisible forces of malice in the heavens and visible, conscious and unconscious, their servants,

Holy Spirit, gentle Comforter, every living soul lives through You, You enlighten and sanctify everything and everyone, You have given us all the earthly and earthly goods that, by the grace of God and the Father, the Lord and God and Savior provided for us in His House of Salvation our Jesus Christ; You Yourself, Spirit of Truth, Source of goods and Giver of life, come to us, Your unworthy servants, and dwell in us, and cleanse us from all impurity, and call us and all our brothers and sisters to repentance, and save , Good, our souls.

O Our Most Holy Mistress, always a Virgin, Mother of God, role model, guide and intercessor for all who live either in chastity and virginity or in the chastity of an honorable and blessed marriage, You, with your motherly love and your all-encompassing prayer cover, call and lead us to repentance and all our neighbors, cleanse us from all impurity, physical and spiritual, and enable us, All-blameless, to imitate your sinless life on earth and your constant service to Your Son and to Your God and to us.

Our venerable fathers and our mothers, you who please God by living either in angelic celibacy or in the grace of marriage and family union, all of you who glorified the Lord of glory with purity, virtue and holiness, who glorified you in His Kingdom, in His holy Church, pray to Him for us and for all our brothers and sisters in Christ! Amen.

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