Prayer for the living

We should think not only of ourselves but of other people too; we should love them and pray for them, because we are all children of one heavenly Father. Such prayers are of profit not only to those for whom we pray but to us as well: for in this prayer we show love toward other people, and the Lord teaches us that without love we cannot be called children of God.

A person should pray for their homeland and for the country in which they live, for their spiritual father, for their parents and kinsfolk, for their benefactors and for all Orthodox Christians, and in general for all people, both the living and the departed, for “he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him” (Luke 20:38).