PRAYER

PRAYER. “He is a theologian who prays, and whoever prays is a theologian.” This dictum of Evagrius of Pontus (q.v.) sums up the Orthodox understanding of prayer. It is the core of the Christian life, the foretaste of beatitude-“the converse of the mind with God,” according to the same Evagrius-and the heart of the struggle of ascesis (q.v.). There are many kinds of prayer. Corporate prayer is the liturgy (q.v.), the prayer of the “Israel of God” as body of Christ, whose focus and energizing principle is the Eucharist (q.v.).

Private prayer is of several kinds: intercessory, psalmody or scriptural meditation, and the prayer of the heart. Intercessory prayer recalls the needs of the living and remembers the dead, and is the Christian’s service to the body of Christ, the community. Psalmody, i.e., the chanting, reading, or pondering of sacred Scriptures (or writings of the Church Fathers [q.v.]), answers to the lectio divina of Western Christian monasticism (q.v.): the feeding on the Word of God (q.v.), Christ, who speaks to the reader through the sacred page and into the heart. This category does not include, however, the sympathetic imagining of God’s sacred acts, which features so prominently in Counter-Reformation Roman Catholic piety (qq.v.). (Orthodox tradition views the exercise of the imagination in prayer with very grave reserve, indeed.) Finally, we list the “prayer of the heart,” in particular the concentration on the name of Jesus coupled with a petition for mercy. This silent prayer opens up in those readied for it, the communion with the Lord and the conscious perception of his presence.