The prayer rope

In the history of the Church the 4th century is considered the time when monastic life took shape. Its first founders were the venerable fathers who struggled in the Egyptian desert: Paul of Thebes and Anthony the Great. To Anthony the Great belongs the composing and the establishing of the monastic rule, the typikon.

In the course of time different traditions of the monastic way of life took shape, and brotherhoods and monasteries appeared. A special rite of tonsure into monasticism was created as well, according to which the hierarch reads over the one called to monasticism the prayer of the blessing of the schema and, as the rite prescribes, clothes him in the tunic, the belt, the paraman, the rason, the mantle, the cowl with its veil and sandals (each has its own symbolic meaning). He is also given a hand cross, a candle and a prayer rope.

The history of the prayer rope is bound up with the founder of monastic life, Pachomius the Great. In the brotherhood where he struggled there lived monks who could not read or write, and who said the Jesus Prayer by heart; for them Pachomius the Great laid down as a rule that they should perform the Jesus Prayer several times a day, and this required counting. For this reason he gave the monks a cord with knots. It is precisely this that is the prototype of the prayer rope of today. In general it signifies a spiritual sword and a ladder of salvation. As a warrior defends himself from the enemy with a sword, so the monk drives the enemy away by prayer on the prayer rope. The roundness of the prayer rope is a symbol of prayer and of eternity. It consists of ten, thirty-three, fifty or a hundred knots and ends with a cross.

The prayer rope is a spiritual sword; during prayer only monastics used it.

Different prayers may be said on the prayer rope (a hymn to the most holy Mother of God or to some saint, but chiefly the Jesus Prayer — “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”), which the spiritual father appoints with his blessing.

By the experience of the holy fathers, prayer on the prayer rope gives the monk special grace and help.

Today every second believer wears a prayer rope — as a bracelet, as a necklace, as a ring, as a belt.

For a layman the wearing of a prayer rope is not obligatory, and praying on it is possible only after the blessing of a spiritual father. One must not play with a prayer rope.

The prayer rope is a holy thing that is very dangerous to use.